Patent ID: 8296864

Claim:
A garment for wearing on the lower body portion of a person, the lower body portion including the person's waist, hips, and at least one leg, the leg including an upper leg portion joined at one of the person's hips and a lower leg portion hingedly joined to the upper leg portion by a knee, the garment comprising: a trunk portion configured to be received over the person's waist and hips when the garment is worn by the person; a generally tubular leg portion extending downwardly from the trunk portion and configured to be received over the upper leg portion, knee, and at least a substantial portion of the lower leg portion of the person when the garment is worn by the person; the trunk portion and the leg portion comprising a plurality of load transferring sections separated by base sections, at least the base sections being stretchable and resilient so that the trunk portion and the leg portion are tightly fitted when the garment is worn by the person, the load transferring sections having a substantially higher resistance to tensile strain than the base sections; wherein said load transferring sections comprise: (a) a knee load distributing ring provided on a front portion of the leg portion, the knee load distributing ring being configured to surround a front of the person's knee when the garment is worn by the person; (b) at least one lower support portion that extends downwardly along the person's lower leg portion, when the garment is worn by the person and connects to the knee load distributing ring; (c) a main support band that extends upwardly along the outer lateral side of the person's upper leg portion to the hip when the garment is worn by the person and connects to an outer lateral portion of the knee load distributing ring; and (d) a transverse support band that extends generally transversely across a rear portion of the person's upper leg portion when the garment is worn by the person and connects an inner lateral portion of the knee load distributing ring to the main support band; wherein said load transferring sections are configured to cooperate to resist inward or outward lateral movement of the person's knee when the garment is worn by the person as a result of the connections to the inner and outer lateral portions of the knee load distributing ring.