Patent ID: 7378465

Claim:
A tire component including a tire tread that comprises: a vulcanized rubber; and an inorganic filler selected from the group consisting of silica, aluminum hydroxide, and both silica and aluminum hydroxide; where the vulcanized rubber includes the vulcanization product of from about 0.2 to about 10 parts by weight, per 100 parts by weight rubber, of a modified rubber selected from the group consisting of: (i) an unsaturated polymer including pendant groups deriving from a grafting reaction where a metal salt of an unsaturated carboxylic acid is grafted to the backbone of the polymer, and (ii) an unsaturated polymer including pendant or terminal groups containing carboxylic acid or anhydride groups, where the unsaturated polymer is selected from the group consisting of poly(butadiene), poly(styrene-co-butadiene), poly(isoprene), poly(styrene-co-butadiene-co-isoprene), poly(styrene-co-isoprene), and terpolymers of ethylene, and α-olefin, and diene monomer.