Patent ID: 7444764

Claim:
A method of obviating the wetting effects on footwear uppers by spray from ground-plane water layers that attach to the footwear sole during the walking stride of a wearer, and are first accelerated therewith and then detached therefrom as the wearer reduces forward velocity near the end of the stride, thereby separating and ejecting the water layer upwardly of the sole and generating said spray, the method comprising, flowing the detached water layer forwardly along the sole and into and along a relatively gradual upwardly sloping wall entrance to a partially substantially relatively steep exit cylindrical wall of a downwardly open cavity provided in the sole and extending transversely across the sole near the toe region thereof; dimensioning the volume of the cylindrical cavity, smoothly and accurately to reverse the forward flow of the water entering the said upwardly sloping entrance wall by changing the direction of the forward flow along the steep gradual exit wall of the cylindrical cavity; and providing a sharp transversely extending trailing edge to the exit wall that ejects the reversely flowing water layer rearwardly out of the cavity as the wearer approaches near said end of the stride, whereby the spray wetting of the upper is prevented.