Nike patents system pairing physical shoes with digital tokens
This filing describes a method for selling physical footwear alongside digital assets on a blockchain. It uses a virtual line where users can move up by completing specific activities, then splits the group so some receive the physical shoes while others receive a digital token linked to the product.
In the filing’s own words
Presented are cryptographic digital assets for retail products, methods for making/using such cryptographic digital assets, and computing systems for generating, intermingling, and exchanging blockchain-protected products. A method for provisioning cryptographic digital assets associated with retail product transfers includes broadcasting notifications of a future transaction of a retail product, and receiving, over a distributed computing network from the computing devices of multiple users, requests to participate in the transaction. A select number of users is added to a virtual line associated with the retail product transaction; from the virtual line, a first user is selected to receive the retail product and a second user is selected to receive a cryptographic digital asset containing a digital retail product and a unique digital asset code. The cryptographic digital asset is transferred to the second user's digital wallet, and the unique digital asset code is recorded on a record block of a blockchain ledger.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A method for operating a computing system that governs distribution of physical footwear and cryptographic digital assets, the method comprising: broadcasting, via a computing node of the computing system over a distributed computing network, a notification of a future transaction of the physical footwear; receiving, via the computing node over the distributed computing network from multiple users, requests to participate in the future transaction; adding, via the computing node, a select number of the users to a virtual line to participate in the future transaction of the physical footwear; receiving, via the computing node from a first computing device of a first user of the users added to the virtual line, user data indicating the first user completed a predefined activity; advancing, via the computing node in response to receiving the user data, the first user from an initial user position to an improved user position forward in the virtual line; selecting, via the computing node from the users added to the virtual line, a first subset of users each designated to receive a respective pair of the physical footwear; selecting, via the computing node from the users added to the virtual line and not selected to the first subset of users, a second subset of users each designated to receive a respective one of the cryptographic digital assets, each of the cryptographic digital assets including a digital object and a unique digital asset code; transferring the physical footwear to the users in the first subset of users; and transferring the cryptographic digital assets to respective digital wallets of the users in the second subset of users.
Facts
- Company
- Nike (NIKE, Inc.)
- Official title
- SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVISIONING CRYPTOGRAPHIC DIGITAL ASSETS FOR BLOCKCHAIN-SECURED RETAIL PRODUCTS
- Publication number
- US20260330481A1
- Application number
- 19728485
- Filed
- Jul 2, 2026
- Published
- Oct 22, 2026
- Inventors
- 2
- Claims
- 20
Classified under
G06Q 30/0185 Physics & computingG06F 16/2379 Physics & computingG06Q 10/10 Physics & computingG06Q 20/0457 Physics & computingG06Q 20/36 Physics & computingG06Q 30/0633 Physics & computingMore from Nike in Shopping & delivery
- Nike patents 3D body scanning to customize shoes in-store Sep 8, 2026
- Nike patents system to stop website crashes during product drops Oct 1, 2026
Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.