Bill Nye's Ballet Toe Shoe: Does anyone know if he got the patent?

Question:I just read that back in 2005 Bill Nye (the science guy!) came up with a better ballet toe shoe. Does anyone know if he got the patent or if his shoe was ever produced?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I just read that back in 2005 Bill Nye (the science guy!) came up with a better ballet toe shoe. Does anyone know if he got the patent or if his shoe was ever produced?

He's got a patent.
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/689569...

I've never of it being produced though, but who knows what company name he's with!

Here's an article with him about it:

"You have a patent pending for a ballet slipper. Please explain.

We did a show on bones and muscles, and I'm standing there on the sidelines at the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and these women, these young women, these girls, have bloody shoes. And I kind of get to talking to them. And I talk to the ... it's not called a coach. That guy, the dance instructor, the class leader or whatever he's called.

The term is "sadist."

The women were all saying, "This happens every day. I have to throw shoes away because they're bloody." So I just got to thinking about it and I just realized that traditional pointe shoes — first of all, they're traditional. You can't mess with the look of them. And this business of the pain being part of the rite of passage, I totally get that. But there's another aspect to it, and that is they haven't changed in years and years and years, and so couldn't we make a new shoe? They're centuries old. And so what I like to say is Bill Nye's improved ballet shoe is to the old shoe as the Nike running shoe is to the Chuck Taylor Converse All Star Basketball shoes.

Did the research involve you wearing a tutu?

No, no. No. I have dressed as a woman on the old show, "Almost Live." And I thought I did fine. I wasn't doing it as a ballet artist."