While Adidas is not, by any means, a new face in the Sports Analytics Patent Forecast®, it has been a while since we have seen a filing on the Data Analytics side of the Patent Radian®.  This is especially true in regards to applications detailing the use of telemetry with Adidas’ last filing in this space being published in August 2019.  Since 2018, this has been a subsection absolutely dominated by one of the top patent assignees in the space, SMT. However, Adidas had its first application publish in this space this time in February 2022. 

The technology detailed in Adida’s most recent filing incorporates magnetic fields as a means of determining performance information for an object. Such sensing methods could be the way of the future due to the lack of necessary sensor hardware. Surprisingly, there has been a lack of activity by SMT in the space since the beginning of 2022. While SMT is at no risk of losing its grasp in the space, it’s always a good idea to keep filing for patent protection. Could Adidas soon become a common name in the space, or will it continue to follow its historical pattern of having a patent publish once every two or so years.

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