Patent ID: 8863797

Claim:
A vehicle wheel tire comprising: a tire tread having a circumferential center tread region comprising at least a plurality of block elements arranged in a symmetric pattern on opposite sides of a tire circumferential equatorial centerplane, wherein symmetrically disposed block elements on opposite sides of the centerplane have a plurality of circumferentially spaced apart and laterally extending sipes extending across the block element and circumferentially oriented notches forming a mutually staggered circumferential array of notches, each notch being axially offset and staggered from circumferentially adjacent notches in the circumferential array, and each notch having opposite terminal ends intersecting and terminating at an adjacent respective pair of sipes, whereby the notch interconnects the respective adjacent pair of sipes; and wherein the pair of adjacent sipes each have a varying depth along the sipe, the varying depth having at least one recessed region and at least one non-recessed region along the sipe, and wherein the circumferentially oriented notches intersect at opposite ends the pair of adjacent sipes at respective non-recessed regions within each sipe; and wherein at each intersection of the notch and the sipe, a pair of bottom raising elements is provided in the sipe, the bottom raising elements defining a recess having substantially the same width as the width of the notch.