In recent years, there were all kinds of doubts of the reliability of each discipline of forensic science in many countries. As a form of feature comparison, footwear impression comparison was doubted because of the specificity of its characteristics being compared, while the possibility that experts find and utilize the characteristics would be affected by its reflective ability and reproducibility. To reply those who doubted, researchers all over the world conducted a large number of fundamental researches. In order to introduce the progress of the fundamental research on acquired characteristics in home and abroad up to now to relative practitioners, thereby make them be acknowledged the consideration and utilization of the value of each kind of acquired characteristic, the current paper illustrated the fundamental researches of the acquired characteristics, including fundamental researches on the reflective ability, specificity and reproducibility of the immediate damage, Schallamach pattern and foreign object. Some of the researches abroad also provided important orientations for the study of footwear impression in home. Besides, the researches mentioned above have brought us enlightenments on research spaces, interdisciplinarity of researches and challenges of impression evidence comparison, which lead us to possible research orientations on acquired characteristics.