An Inventor and Nike to Go 1 on 1

While the Chicago Bulls’ Michael Jordan tries to blow the Lakers off the basketball court in the NBA finals, an Arlington, Va., inventor is putting on a full-court press against one of Jordan’s biggest backers, Nike Inc.

Charles Petrosky, a 73-year-old inventor who works out of a cluttered shop in his basement, claims in a federal suit in Alexandria, Va., that the manufacturing giant swiped his invention when it marketed the Air Jordan sneaker, named after the Bulls’ star guard.

“There’s no doubt Nike knew about Mr. Petrosky and his idea for an air cushion sole before the introduction of the Air Max and the Air Jordan,” said Joel M. Freed, Petrosky’s attorney. Freed said his client patented an air cushion sole in 1978 and tried to sell the idea to Nike long before it first marketed the Air Jordan in the 1980s.

The suit has been compared by attorneys on both sides to the case of a former Maryland man who accused several carmakers of stealing his idea for an intermittent windshield wiper now used on millions of vehicles. The Ford Motor Co. agreed to pay inventor Robert W. Kearns $10.2 million in that suit.

Petrosky’s suit, which is not expected to come to trial until the fall, seeks what could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties and penalties. Nike said it has sold millions of pairs of Air Jordans at a retail price of more than $100 a pair.

Nike’s representatives said its Air Jordan and Air Max shoes bear little resemblance to the air cushion sole patented by Petrosky.

“If you look at his proposed system and you look at Nike’s, no one would say they are the same,” said Leslie A. Nicholson, one of Nike’s attorneys. “More importantly, they work very differently.”

Nicholson also said that Petrosky’s invention “is remarkably similar” to an air cushion sole patented in the early 1900s and that the suit may raise the question of whether Petrosky’s shoe should have been awarded a patent.

Petrosky’s sole has several chambers that are connected by tiny holes. The chambers are filled using the kind of air pump and needle used to inflate basketballs. Nike’s air cushions are sealed plastic bladders that are inserted into the sole of the shoe.

The theory behind each is that when the wearer walks heel to toe, the cushions redistribute the air so that the contours always provide support and a comfortable fit.

Nike representative Lindsay D. Stewart conceded that “the little guy-big guy phenomenon” is a factor in the Petrosky case and that a jury might hold more sympathy for the “basement shop-style” inventor.

Petrosky, who was hospitalized recently for infections in his cardiovascular system, said he was eager to return to his beloved basement workshop. Though he was given last rites recently, he has improved, and doctors have given him a favorable prognosis.

Petrosky’s tinkering dates to the late 1940s, when he was discharged from the Army after World War II and he and a friend opened a barbershop.

He dreamed up a razor strop that was mounted on a support beam so the barber could sharpen his straight razor without having to use two hands. Charles T. Petrosky, the inventor’s 38-year-old son, said his father failed to patent the gadget and was angry when he later saw a mounted strop advertised in a trade journal.

“It was the fish that got away,” the inventor’s son said.

From then on -- especially when the elder Petrosky retired from cutting hair in 1975 -- the inventor was far more mindful of patenting his ideas. He was awarded nine patents over the years, including one for a ring with a small blade attached that could be used in self-defense and another for a system designed to rid cities of rats.

Neither invention captured consumers’ imaginations, and though a few rings were manufactured, none was ever sold, Petrosky’s son said.

“I just never got off the ground in marketing,” the elder Petrosky said.