Patent ID: 8387164

Claim:
A protective jaw pad in combination with a sports helmet having a hard plastic shell with at least one side portion extending to the side of a wearer's jaw, the pad comprising: a first shock absorbing member made of one piece of resilient thermoplastic polyurethane, the first shock absorbing member having a sheet portion with a coverage area adapted for overlying at least part of the side portion of the helmet, and a plurality of hollow protrusions made as one piece with the sheet portion and distributed around the coverage area, the protrusions each having a large diameter base opening into the sheet portion, a small diameter closed and flat crest spaced for the base and substantially engaging an inner surface of the side portion of the helmet, and a tapering side wall extending from the sheet portion to the crest, each tapering side wall being compressible for absorbing shocks applied to the shell and the bases being spaced from each other for distributing shock absorbing effects of the protrusions around the coverage area of the sheet portion; a second shock absorbing member made of a monolithic block of elastomer foam and extending over the coverage area and adapted to face the wearer's jaw for further absorbing shocks applied to the shell, the second shock absorbing member having the same shape as the sheet portion of the first shock absorbing member for covering the sheet portion of the first shock absorbing member; a cover of resilient elastomer covering the second shock absorbing member and being fixed around its perimeter to a perimeter of the sheet portion of the first shock absorbing member for connecting the first and second shock absorbing members to each other; and a plurality of spaced fasteners removably connecting the jaw pad to the inner surface of the side portion at at least some of the protrusion; the tapering side walls of the protrusions of the first shock absorbing member having a first length for spacing the sheet portion from the shell by at least the first length; the plurality of fasteners being each a female and male snap, with one of the female and male snap of each fastener being fixed to one of the protrusion and the other of the female and male snap of each fastener being connected to the inner surface of the side portion of the helmet.