Tubeless tires are pneumatic tires that do not require a separate inner tube. Unlike traditional pneumatic tires which use a separate inner tube, tubeless tires have continuous ribs molded integrally into the bead of the tire so that they are forced by the pressure of the air inside the tire to seal with the flanges of the metal rim of the wheel.

Many patents had been filed covering tubeless tires. Killen Tire applied for a patent in 1928 and was granted GB patent 329955  in the UK in 1930. The Wingfoot Corporation, a subsidiary of Goodyear Tire were granted a patent in South Africa in 1944. Due to technical problems, most of these designs only saw limited production or were abandoned.

BF Goodrich applied for a patent in 1946 and eventually received US patent 2587470  in 1952 in the United States. By 1955 tubeless tires became standard equipment on new cars. BF Goodrich had to defend their patent in court several times, due to the similarities of previous designs. The primary difference between the BF Goodrich design and their predecessors was the usage of butyl rubber, which was more resistant to air leakage than the natural rubber used in the other designs.