US 6986269

Based on my searches, I could not retrieve a live USPTO PatentCenter record or a CAFC 2026 docket entry for this patent number. The CAFC/docket searches returned no direct hits (the only "6986269" hit was an unrelated chemical-compound catalog number), and the USPTO query returned general third-party patent pages rather than the USPTO database itself. The authoritative bibliographic data below comes from the full Google Patents record provided to me and is corroborated by third-party sources (freepatentsonline.com, unifiedpatents.com, uspto.report).

US Patent 6,986,269 — Summary

• Patent number: US 6,986,269 B2 (application no. 11/024,480)
• Title: Footwear with knit upper and method of manufacturing the footwear
• Inventor: Bhupesh Dua
• Assignee: Nike, Inc. (original assignee; listed current assignee: Nike, Inc.)
• Filing date: December 30, 2004
• Priority date: December 18, 2002 (divisional of U.S. Application 10/323,608, issued as US 6,931,762 B1)
• Issue date: January 17, 2006
• Legal status: Expired — Lifetime (anticipated expiration December 18, 2022)
• Related applications: Parent US 6,931,762 (divisional relationship); continuation US 11/334,731 → US 7,131,296 B2

Abstract

An article of footwear with a knit upper and a method of manufacturing the footwear are disclosed. The upper is formed through a knitting process to include a plurality of sections formed of different yarns and knits to provide the sections with different physical properties. In portions of the upper where sections formed of different yarns are in adjacent wales, a tuck stitch is utilized to join the sections. The method utilizes a circular knitting machine having multiple feeds that work together to knit the upper into a unitary, seamless structure. The multiple feeds, each of which provide multiple types of yarns, produce the sections to have varying physical properties.

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The patent has 27 claims; the independent claims are 1, 14, and 23. All three are method claims directed to manufacturing a knit upper (or the full footwear article) with two or more yarn sections joined by tuck stitches.

• Claim 1 (method of manufacturing an upper): Knit a first section from a first yarn having a first physical property; knit a second section from a second yarn having a second physical property that is different from the first; keep the second yarn substantially out of the first section and the first yarn substantially out of the second section; and knit tuck stitches between the sections to join them seamlessly.
• Claim 14 (method of manufacturing an article of footwear): Same general approach as claim 1, but specifically framed around stretch — the first section is knit from a yarn with greater stretchability than the second section's yarn; the sections are joined by tuck stitches between adjacent wales; and a sole structure is attached to the upper.
• Claim 23 (method of manufacturing an upper): Knit the upper with a first section of a first yarn and a second section of a second yarn; select the yarns so their physical properties differ; substantially confine each yarn to its own section; and knit tuck stitches between the sections to join them.

Key Technical Points

• Sections (e.g., ankle, heel, instep, primary, toe, metatarsal) are knit in a single, continuous, unitary structure so adjoining sections need no sewing — reducing seams and material waste.
• Tuck stitches are used specifically to join adjacent wales formed of different yarns; transitions between courses of different yarns need no tuck stitches. This avoids exposed yarn "tails" and prevents unraveling at section boundaries.
• The described manufacturing equipment is a four-feed narrow-tube circular knitting machine (e.g., the Sangiocomo "X-MACHINE"), capable of knit/tuck/float needle selection and continuous or reciprocating motion.

Uncertainty / Caveats

• I found no evidence of any CAFC 2026 docket or appeal involving this patent; the patent expired in December 2022, and my docket-specific searches returned nothing relevant. (One search result mentioned this patent in passing in the context of IPR2016-00921 and IPR2013-00067, which involved other Nike patents — not this patent's own litigation.)
• I could not directly access the USPTO Patent Center/assignment pages in these searches; the bibliographic facts above are from the Google Patents record (provided in the task) and corroborating third-party databases, so treat them as reliable but not freshly re-verified against the USPTO site today.

Based on the searches I was able to run, I found no litigation directly involving US Patent 6,986,269 B2.

What I searched

• "6986269" patent litigation
• "US 6986269" lawsuit
• "6986269" Nike patent case court
• Nike "6986269" OR "6,986,269" infringement defendant
• site:portal.unifiedpatents.com "6986269"
• "6,986,269" OR "6986269" docket PACER district court

Results

All hits were bibliographic/patent-family pages, not litigation records:

• freepatentsonline.com/6986269.html — full-text patent page only (Nike, Bhupesh Dua).
• portal.unifiedpatents.com patent pages (e.g., US-6931762-B1, US-4211806-A, US-2675631-A) — these reference US-6986269-B2 only as a member of the patent family (e.g., in "Cited By"/family listings), not as a litigated patent.
• patents.justia.com — cites 6,986,269 as prior art/reference in later Nike patents (e.g., US 8,959,959, US 10,568,383), not as a case.

Conclusion

No district court case, CAFC appeal, IPR/PGR, or other litigation naming US Patent 6,986,269 as the asserted or challenged patent was identified in any of my searches.

A few important caveats, consistent with the earlier sections of this analysis:

1. Patent status: The patent expired by operation of law on December 18, 2022 (20 years from its December 18, 2002 priority date), and the Google Patents record lists it as "Expired – Lifetime." A patent that has expired is unlikely to be asserted in new litigation after that date, which is consistent with the absence of recent case hits.
2. Related-family litigation: Earlier searches in this analysis surfaced passing references to IPR2016-00921 and IPR2013-00067 in connection with Nike patents generally; neither of those proceedings was identified as challenging this specific patent (6,986,269). I could not verify from these searches that any proceeding targeted this patent's claims.
3. Search limitations: I could not directly query USPTO Patent Center, PACER, or the CAFC docket in these searches. The Unified Patents litigation case-list portal did not return any case entries for this patent number in the results I received. If you need an absolute confirmation, a direct PACER/Unified Patents/RPX query by patent number "6986269" would be the definitive next step.

Bottom line: Based on the available and searchable evidence, there is no known litigation involving US Patent 6,986,269. If it was ever asserted, I found no record of it; the patent's post-2022 expiration makes any active case unlikely.