Delta Junction inventor wins design patent for sports bra with built-in neck guard

A woman in Delta Junction, a town of 918 people at the last census, now holds 15 years of federal protection on the look of a sports bra with a built-in neck guard.

The patent office issued the design to Amelia Dianne Cummings on Sept. 8, on an application she filed herself in October 2024. It took nearly two years. The claim is to "the ornamental design for a sports bra with neck guard as shown and described," laid out across seven sheets of drawings showing the garment from the front, back, sides, top and bottom. Broken lines mark the stitching, which the document says is part of the claimed design.

A design patent covers how something looks, not how it works. The neck guard's function gets no protection from it.

Neck guards became mandatory equipment in the year she filed. USA Hockey has required neck laceration protection for all non-adult players and for on-ice officials under 18 since Aug. 1, 2024. Cummings filed two months later.

The examiner weighed prior art going back to a 1987 apparel patent, along with design patents issued to other inventors between 2016 and 2024 and two online listings for neck-guard bras and workout tops already on the market.

Whether garments like it prevent injury is a separate question, and an unsettled one. Researchers writing in a peer-reviewed sports medicine journal in July argued that breast support and protection "should not be presented as established injury-prevention interventions," saying the evidence is not yet strong enough to support the claim.