Ian's Noesis Wiki

Properties1
tagspatent, retinal-prosthesis, cortical-prosthesis, vision-restoration, neuroprosthesis, implant, reinforcement-learning, augmented-reality, eye-tracking, smart-contact-lens

40 min read

Visual Prosthesis Patents

Curated, one-paragraph-per-patent summaries of existing visual prosthesis patents — the IP landscape behind the devices in visual-prosthesis and retinal-prosthesis. One entry per patent (or patent family), each with assignee, inventors, key dates, and a single summarizing paragraph. The collection grows as new patents are reviewed; entries are verified against Google Patents records. See pitham-vision for the assignee of the first family.

Patents

CN102813574B — Visual prosthesis image acquisition device based on eye tracking (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 2014)

Assignee: Shanghai Jiao Tong University · Inventors: Chai Xinyu, Wu Kaijie, Gu Yun, Lei Xuping (pinyin transliteration of the CN record; Chai Xinyu leads SJTU’s visual-prosthesis programme) · Application: CN201210275805.8A, filed 2012-08-03 · Published: A 2012-12-12; granted B 2014-09-10 · Status: Expired — fee related (lapsed before its anticipated 2032 term) · Cited by: 18 later filings

SJTU’s granted device is a gaze-contingent image-acquisition unit for a visual prosthesis — the external “camera glasses” half of an implant system — that steers the scene camera to follow the wearer’s eyes rather than their head. It comprises an eye-movement signal acquisition-and-processing module, a scene camera, and a rotating pan-tilt platform: a dedicated eye-tracking camera (outer diameter ≤8 mm, macro focus) films the pupil from a lens of the glasses, a video receiving/processing unit derives the eyeball’s rotation direction from that video, and a control signal rotates the pan-tilt (mounting on the glasses’ bridge; millisecond response) so the scene camera — outer diameter ≤12 mm, field of view ≥30°, frame rate ≥24 fps — turns toward the gaze direction and captures imagery there, which is passed to the prosthesis’ image-processing unit for stimulation. The electronics and a power supply sit on the spectacle frame (camera on one lens, processing unit on a temple, optional dark glasses). Claimed benefit: bionic replication of normal saccadic/foveating vision so the user actively scans the world by eye movement — an early (2012) academic precursor to the eye-tracking auto-alignment found later in Pitham Vision’s system (claim 13 of CN113677257A), and distinct in steering a mechanical camera gimbal rather than projecting light into the eye.

CN106233328B — Apparatus and method for improving, enhancing or augmenting vision (Evergaze Inc / eSight, 2020)

Assignee: EVERGAZE Inc (holding company of eSight electronic eyewear) · Inventors (CN record, transliterated): P·R·安塔基 (P. R. Antaki), R·邓恩 (R. Dunn), R·伦贝格 (R. Lemberg) · Application: CN201580020382.7A, filed 2015-02-19 (PCT/US2015/016717) · Published: A 2016-12-14; granted B 2020-05-12 · Status: CN expired — fee related (anticipated 2035 term); US (15/119,399 + continuation 16/570,430) and CA active; EP/WO ceased · Citations: 35+ patent citations

eSight’s granted apparatus is the head-mounted “electronic eyewear” at the core of its commercial low-vision products: a computerized method and apparatus (21 apparatus + method claims, 27 figures) that uses a forward-facing scene camera (away from the eyes), one or more sensors (including eye-tracking-capable configurations), a near-eye microdisplay, and processors that capture the scene, modify the image according to “vision improvement parameters” (notably magnification and contrast enhancement), and display it on the microdisplay — with the device sized and worn so the second eye stays unobstructed and the first eye’s peripheral vision is preserved (claim 21), mirroring the bioptic-tilt form factor of eSight 4. Key claimed features include picture-in-picture magnification, where a first display region provides background magnification and a smaller continuous region within it is magnified by a different amount (claims 37–39); wireless/conductive control units integrated into a glasses frame; and processor+microdisplay integration on a single semiconductor wafer. Importantly for this collection, the apparatus is explicitly configured to “supplement, coordinate, or communicate with an implant within the first eye” or with an artificial eye (claim 36) — i.e., its core embodiments enhance residual vision (a non-implant low-vision aid, adjacent to rather than a neural visual prosthesis), but the claim scope reaches camera/microdisplay coordination with implanted retinal devices, making it relevant prior art to the “camera-glasses half” of implant systems such as Pitham Vision’s CN113677257A family.

CN113325608A / CN113325608B — Method and apparatus for treating visual disorders (Novasight / Improved Vision Systems IVS, 2021/2022)

Assignee: Novasight Ltd (the Chinese record also identifies Improved Vision Systems IVS Ltd as the filing applicant) · Inventors (CN record, transliterated): Ran Yam, Oren Yehezkel, D. Oz, Tal Samet · Priority: GB2005040.7, filed 2020-04-06 · Application: CN202110145893.9A, filed 2021-02-02 · Published: A 2021-08-31; granted B 2022-12-09 · Status: CN active, anticipated expiration 2041-02-02; US (17/503,321 and continuation 17/744,684) active, GB active, JP pending, EP withdrawn, WO ceased · Citations: 26 patent citations; cited by 16

This patent claims a gaze-contingent, non-invasive optical-treatment headset rather than an implant: a transparent lens held 5–50 mm in front of the cornea contains a transparent pixelated active optical element with at least 100 independently addressable pixels, while an eye tracker reports gaze direction and a controller repeatedly updates the pixels to create an image mask that modifies the retinal image. The mask and any refractive lens power can selectively degrade or otherwise modulate part of the viewed field according to where the eye is looking, allowing treatment strategies for refractive disorders (including myopia, hyperopia and ametropia), visual deterioration, and—by degrading selected input to the non-amblyopic eye—amblyopia/visual-development disorders; two-eye embodiments independently control both active elements using each eye’s gaze and refractive power. The device therefore sits adjacent to, rather than inside, the visual-prosthesis class: it does not replace photoreceptors or stimulate an implant, but its transparent, pixel-addressable, eye-tracked optical interface is relevant wearable prior art for gaze-contingent visual restoration and rehabilitation, especially alongside the camera/microdisplay systems in CN106233328B and CN113785235A.

CN113677257A / US20220192885A1 — System for projecting a pattern of interest onto a retinal area of a human eye (Pitham Vision, 2021/2022)

Assignee: Pitham Vision (皮修姆视觉公司) · Inventors: Guillaume Buck, Xavier Beuque, Vincent Bismuth, Martin Deterre · Priority: 2019-03-28 (PCT/EP2019/057965) · Filed: 2020-03-27 (PCT/EP2020/058873) · Published: CN 2021-11-19, US 2022-06-23 · Status: CN pending, US active, parent WO ceased

Pitham Vision’s system (80) projects a pattern of interest onto a “corrected” retinal region — one whose photosensitivity has been restored by a photosensitive (photovoltaic) retinal implant or by optogenetic modification. It combines a patient-worn carrying frame (spectacles, headband or headring), a frame-mounted camera capturing the visual scene, a projector device that directs a pulsed light beam encoding the pattern through the pupil, and a processor device, separate from the frame, that converts the captured images into the pattern modulating the beam. Preferred embodiments use an infrared light source (laser/LED matrix) with a digital micromirror array (DMD) plus total-internal-reflection prism to split the source into pulsed sub-beams that replicate the pattern; the light source and DMD may sit in the processor, linked by a hybrid cable carrying power, camera data and a fibre-optic light path with a laser-safety interlock that shuts off emission if the fibre is damaged, keeping the worn unit light. A five-movement-direction alignment device (three translations via prism joints, two rotations via rotary joints, with locking units), optionally with eye-tracking and motorized feedback, centers the optics on the central eye axis; a tinted lens dilates the pupil, and the compact, co-linear camera/optics minimize occlusion so the system overlays prosthetically generated patterns on any residual natural vision. The pulsed-beam design and controlled irradiance address the stated limitation that ordinary augmented-reality goggles deliver insufficient irradiance for photosensitive implants.

CN113613712A — Device, projector device and method for projecting a light beam onto the retina of a human eye (Pitham Vision, 2021)

Assignee: Pitham Vision · Inventors: Martin Deterre and co-inventors (CN record) · Priority: 2019-03-28 (PCT/EP2019/057966) · Filed: 2020-03-27 (PCT/EP2020/058874) · Published: CN 2021-11-05 · Status: US active (17/593,276; continuation 19/210,450 filed 2025), JP active, AU abandoned, CN/EP/CA pending

This second family member attacks the optical-efficiency problem of getting the patterned beam into the eye: the projector device (1) projects a light beam (100) from outside the eye through the pupil (111) with its exit-pupil diameter (102) set smaller than the eye’s pupil diameter (112) — ≤3 mm, preferably ≤2 mm, ≤1 mm or ≤0.5 mm, down to 0.25 mm — so the entire patterned beam enters the pupil instead of being vignetted by the iris (the reason ordinary wide-beam AR goggles cannot reliably drive photosensitive implants). Alignment is specified tightly: the beam axis must pass within ≤1 mm of the pupil centre and within ≤1° of the viewing axis defined by the pupil centre and the implanted device; the exit-pupil plane should coincide with the pupil plane within ±5 mm (preferably ±1 mm); and the exit-pupil distance is adjustable over 5–50 mm (preferably 10–30 mm). To concentrate power where the implant sits, coherent (laser) light patterned by the micromirror array is arranged so neighbouring diffraction orders land ≥7–10 mm apart at the exit-pupil plane and 80–95% (about 90%) of the optical power goes into a single diffraction order. The claims also cover monitoring pupil diameter and ambient light to adapt the exit-pupil diameter, a detachable eye-observation module sharing the optical axis so a clinician can verify targeting on the retina, optional tinted/shading lenses, and a spectacles-frame/headband wearable. Method claims mirror the same beam-constraints.

CN113631079A (granted as CN113631079B) — Method and apparatus for projecting a target pattern onto a modified retinal region of the human eye (Pitham Vision, 2021)

Assignee: Pitham Vision · Inventors: Martin Deterre and co-inventors (CN record) · Priority: 2019-03-28 (PCT/EP2019/057967) · Filed: 2020-03-27 (PCT/EP2020/058875) · Published: CN A 2021-11-09; B (grant) published later · Status: CN active/granted — the most progressed family member; US active (17/593,275; continuation 18/796,038 filed 2024), JP/AU active, CA/EP pending

The third family member claims the temporal-encoding (grayscale) method for pulsed projection onto photosensitive (“modified”) retinas. A pulsed input beam (20) with constant peak irradiance, constant period and a duty cycle ≤0.5 (preferably ≤0.4, most preferably ≤0.3) is modulated and split by the micromirror array (3), each mirror steered independently according to the target pattern (6), into modulated pulsed sub-beams (40) that together form the pulsed output beam (4) reflecting the pattern. Per-pixel brightness is encoded not by varying source intensity but by individual pulse-width modulation of each sub-beam’s modulation duty cycle (32), with the mirror-modulation period synchronised to the input-beam pulse period and each sub-beam’s maximum duty cycle capped at the input-beam duty cycle (≤0.5/0.4/0.3). A camera and processing unit capture the visual scene and segment it into a pixel pattern carrying luminance values that set the individual duty cycles. The invention thus gives safe, graded per-pixel irradiance control for driving photovoltaic or optogenetic implants while keeping the light source pulsed and power-efficient — the temporal counterpart to the system patent (CN113677257A) and the optics patent (CN113613712A) in the same family. Notably, the Chinese application has been granted (CN113631079B).

CN113785235A — Natural physiological optical user interface for intraocular microdisplays (Twenty Twenty Twenty Treatment Co Ltd, 2021)

Assignee: Twenty Twenty Twenty Treatment Co Ltd (an intraocular-microdisplay venture in the inventor space of Twenty Twenty Therapeutics LLC; related filings by ophthalmologist Dimitri T. Azar et al.) · Inventors (CN record, transliterated): S. Lee (S·李), S. Sinha (S·辛哈), D. Aza[r] (D·阿扎) · Priority: US provisional 62/846,443, 2019-05-10 · Application: CN202080034840.3A, filed 2020-03-23 (PCT/US2020/024195) · Published: CN 2021-12-10 · Status: CN pending; US (17/609,752 + continuations 18/542,170 & 18/542,155, Dec 2023), EP, JP, KR active; WO ceased

This family claims the external headset half of an intraocular microdisplay (IOMD) system — an implanted microdisplay that projects imagery directly onto the retina, bypassing diseased anterior-segment optics — and makes its control “physiological” by letting the wearer’s own gaze and blinks steer it (the eponymous natural optical user interface). The auxiliary head unit (claims 13 ff.) comprises a head-worn frame, a forward-facing scene camera, a gaze-tracking module monitoring the eyes, and a controller that acquires scene images, derives the eye’s gaze direction from the tracking data, identifies the gaze-contingent subsection of the scene image, and wirelessly relays only that subsection to the IOMD implant for display on the retina — i.e., fovea-contingent cropping that keeps the wireless link and implant throughput tractable while restoring saccade-driven scanning. Refinements exploit natural physiology for power and realism: a camera monitors the eyelids, and when the lids are judged closed (a blink), relaying is paused or the implant is signalled to stop projecting until the eye reopens (claims 18); gaze tracking can use an electromagnetic eye fiducial implanted in the eye whose field is sensed by the headset (claim 19); and for near work, the controller searches the scene for “near-vision fiducials” — identifiable markers worn on the wrist/hand/finger — cycling camera focus settings until the fiducial is sharp (claims 20–22). The head-unit-plus-implant split parallels the camera-glasses architecture of the Pitham Vision CN113677257A family, but here the implant is an image display rather than a photovoltaic/photosensitive stimulator, and the novel matter is gaze-contingent image selection and blink/fiducial-driven control of an intraocular display.

CN121944384A — Cortical visual prosthesis control method and system based on reinforcement learning and behavioral feedback (Mindtrix, 2026)

Assignee: Mingshi Brain Computer Technology Suzhou Co Ltd (明视脑机科技(苏州)有限公司) — mindtrix · Inventors: Zhang Li, Li Xing, Sun Yue, Fang Ming (pinyin transliteration of the CN record; no English-family member exists for this CN-only filing) · Application: CN202610189468.2A, filed 2026-02-10 · Published: A 2026-05-01 · Status: Pending (CN application publication; no grant yet) · Cited by: 0 (recent filing)

Mindtrix’s RL-based cortical prosthesis control method replaces the standard static retinotopic lookup table (stimulate one electrode at calibration, ask the patient where they see the phosphene, build a pixel-electrode map, drive at fixed frequency thereafter) with an adaptive closed-loop stimulation strategy that evolves online via behavioral feedback. A head-mounted camera acquires the scene image; a ResNet-18 backbone extracts a 512-dimensional feature vector capturing edge structure, texture distribution, and semantic category information. This state vector, combined with the recent historical pulse sequence, feeds a multivariate point-process model (termed RLPP — Reinforcement Learning Point Process) that computes per-channel stimulation probabilities on discrete time steps, from which a non-homogeneous Bernoulli process generates binary pulse sequences for each microelectrode — mimicking the temporal statistics of biological neural firing rather than constant-frequency stimulation. The pulses drive a microelectrode array implanted in V1, with real-time accumulated-charge monitoring that force-inhibits any channel at a preset charge-safety threshold (CICmax). The patient performs a visual recognition task; behavioral feedback comprises an external reward (positive for correct discrimination vs. ground-truth label, zero/negative for failure) and an internal reward (additional weight to low-frequency perceived categories when the category distribution deviates from a uniformity threshold, encouraging perceptual coverage). These are fused into a total reward signal and applied via a policy-gradient update so subsequent pulse sequences improve task success — forming a stimulation–perception–feedback–optimization loop that automatically adapts to cortical functional reorganization from long-term blindness and counters phosphene morphological drift over time. Claim 1 covers the full method; dependent claims specify the deep-network feature extraction (claim 2), the point-process + Bernoulli pulse generation (claim 3), charge-safety inhibition (claim 4), the dual external/internal reward design (claim 5), and the policy-gradient parameter update (claim 6). This is the first patent in the collection from a cortical visual prosthesis company and the first to frame stimulation-parameter optimization as an RL problem — shifting from the camera-to-electrode encoding patents of the Pitham/SJTU/eSight families to the algorithmic-control plane of the implant.

US9050468B2 — Field of view matching in a visual prosthesis (Second Sight Medical Products / Cortigent, 2015)

Original applicant: Second Sight Medical Products Inc · Current assignee: Cortigent Inc · Inventors: Robert J. Greenberg, Arup Roy, Avraham I. Caspi, Matthew J. McMahon · Family: priority US provisional 60/898,777 (2007-01-31); US divisional chain 12/023,907 (2008-01-31; now US 8,583,241) → 14/050,003 (2013-10-09) → 14/214,181 (2014-03-14, granted as US9050468B2); PCT/US2008/052662 filed 2008-01-31 · Published: US20140200629A1 2014-07-17; granted US9050468B2 2015-06-09 · Status: US active, anticipated expiration 2028-01-31

This patent claims a visual-prosthesis processing architecture that matches the camera’s displayed/stimulated field of view to the angular span of the subject’s neural tissue addressed by the stimulation system. A video capture device records the scene; a video-processing unit selects the portion of that image whose field of view corresponds to the retina or other neural tissue being stimulated, converts only that portion into stimulation patterns, and transmits the patterns to the implant, preventing a mismatch between a wide camera image and the much narrower perceptual/stimulation field. The claims cover a default zoom that returns the system to the matched field, continuously controllable zoom with a single-action reset, activation-time matching, and a representative stimulated field of approximately 10–12° by 17–19° (about 10.8° × 17.9°); claim 6 expressly includes the retina as the target tissue. This is a core visual-prosthesis patent from the Second Sight/Argus II lineage and provides an important precedent for field-of-view selection and image-to-neural-tissue registration, distinct from the later Pitham patents’ optical projection and from gaze-contingent cropping systems.

CN118090164B — Head mounted display device calibration method, device and system (Yongjiang Laboratory; adjacent AR technology, 2024)

Applicant: Yongjiang Laboratory (Y-LAB, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China) · Inventors (pinyin transliterated from the CN record): Mei Guangxing (梅光行), Zhao Lei (赵蕾), Zang Shunli (臧顺利), Chai Chengzhe (柴诚哲), Zhou Xiaochen (周晓宸), Wang Chaohao (王超昊) · Family: CN202410515146.3A filed 2024-04-26; PCT/CN2025/089102 filed 2025-04-15; TW114115653A filed 2025-04-25 · Published: CN118090164A 2024-05-28; granted CN118090164B 2024-08-09 · Status: CN active, anticipated expiration 2044-04-26; PCT pending · Classification: adjacent technology, not a visual prosthesis (CPC H04N13/327 — calibration of stereoscopic image reproducers)

CN118090164B addresses calibration of augmented-reality head-mounted displays rather than a prosthesis: an image sensor inside a “simulated eyeball” acquires the content displayed by the head-mounted device as a first image; the system computes a displacement vector between a tracked feature point and the image centre, and when its magnitude exceeds a first threshold the simulated eyeball is rotated to reposition the sensor and recapture the displayed content, refreshing the first image until the displacement falls within the threshold, whereupon rotation stops. The stated aims are improved calibration accuracy, reduced error, and elimination of manual calibration. As a hardware-in-the-loop method of verifying what a display actually projects — filed by Yongjiang Laboratory (Y-LAB), the Zhejiang/Ningbo provincial research institute — it sits adjacent to the display-calibration needs of visual prostheses, but it does not acquire scenes for a patient, stimulate neural tissue, or interface with an implanted device, so it remains a clearly separated, non-prosthesis entry.

US5865839A — Artificial retina (John F. Doorish, 1999)

Assignee: Individual (inventor John F. Doorish) · Application: US08/858,657, filed 1997-05-19 — continuation-in-part of US08/777,075, filed 1996-12-30 · Published: granted US5865839A 1999-02-02 · Status: US expired — lifetime (anticipated expiration 2016-12-30) · Cited by: 54

The collection’s earliest entry, and its first fully-implantable artificial-retina concept: rather than the eyeglass-camera-plus-laser design it critiques in its background (bulky, reliability-prone, hard to keep the beam aligned), Doorish keeps the eye’s own optics and puts the entire device inside the eye. Each unit comprises a detector element; a fiber-optic element (one or more fiber-optic tubes — optionally colored, or fronted by a microlens and color filter for color vision) that captures incoming light and directs it to a photodiode or infrared detector emitting a current proportional to intensity; an optional IC that amplifies and relays the signal; and a coupler that delivers the output to the retina — claimed coupler forms include a fine platinum or copper wire, a copper sheet curved to the retinal surface, and, unusually, a sharpened scanning-tunneling-microscope (STM) tip for point current release. Claim 11 claims an array version (multiple artificial retinas connected together), housed in a plastic shell of intraocular-lens material; the stated objects are restoring partial vision in retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Conceptually this 1996-vintage filing is an early forerunner of today’s intraocular photovoltaic arrays (cf. PRIMA): light enters through the pupil, conversion happens at the implant, and current is delivered to surviving retina — though Doorish routes the light through fibers to discrete detectors rather than making the array itself the photodetector.

US11461936B2 — Wearable image manipulation and control system with micro-displays and augmentation of vision and sensing in augmented reality glasses (Raytrx LLC, 2022)

Assignee: Raytrx LLC (raytrx — the IP affiliate of Ocutrx Vision Technologies) · Inventors: Michael Hayes Freeman, Richard C. Freeman, Mitchael C. Freeman, Chad Boss, Jordan Boss · Family: US provisional 62/697,854 (2018-07-13); continuation-in-part of 15/073,144 (2016-03-17; now US 9,955,862), 15/940,561 (2018-03-29; now US 10,111,583) and 16/173,719 (2018-10-29), and of 15/962,661 (2018-04-25) — shared earliest provisional 62/134,422 (2015-03-17) · Application: US16/511,202, filed 2019-07-15 · Published: US20190385342A1 2019-12-19; granted US11461936B2 2022-10-04 · Status: US active — adjusted expiration 2037-11-08 · Cited by: 83

The parent grant of the Raytrx/Ocutrx mixed-reality vision-correction line: a wearable system — camera input, see-through image projection (waveguide display, pico projector or prism optics per the dependent claims) and a processor — that displays the real-world camera image and an augmented image simultaneously, so the wearer keeps both real-world peripheral vision and the corrected feed. Its medical core is shader-controlled pixel remapping: the system loads “ansler grid” data [sic — Amsler grid] and generates a shader (claim 1) that “cuts” a scotoma-shaped hole in the captured image and displaces/compresses the remaining image onto adjacent sighted retina (pixel mapping, interpolation and synthesis — PMIS), relying on the brain’s natural blind-spot “filling-in” (described via the punctum caecum and termed “brain-stitching”) to complete the percept; a projected Amsler-grid mode doubles as the calibration test that maps the defect boundary. Further claimed or described features: ≥50° (up to 120°) display field of view, a ~1 ms GPU remap target, eye tracking (claim 10: a subsystem capable of detecting “abnormalities in eye functioning”), dynamic opacity, hand/finger gesture tracking (including drone camera control), wireless-device control of the head-mounted display, and bone-conduction audio. The specification reports the approach working instantly on co-inventor Brig. Gen. Richard C. “Dick” Freeman (USAF, Ret.), an AMD patient, who “could instantly ‘see’ a nose on a face” that had been hidden for years. Classified as adjacent technology rather than a neural prosthesis — it re-projects onto remaining sighted retina with no implant or stimulation (cf. the eSight and Novasight entries) — but it is the collection’s first explicit scotoma-remapping (pixel-displacement) family and direct prior art to camera-glasses architectures such as CN113677257A; the smart-contact-lens continuation of the same line is catalogued next.

US12413698B2 — Wearable image manipulation and control system with correction for vision defects and augmentation of vision and sensing (Raytrx LLC, 2025)

Assignee: Raytrx LLC (raytrx) · Inventors: Michael Hayes Freeman, Richard C. Freeman, Mitchael C. Freeman, Chad Boss, Jordan Boss (as in US11461936B2) · Family: continuation of 15/962,661 (2018-04-25; provisional 62/489,801, 2017-04-25) via the 15/073,144 chain (2016-03-17; now US 9,955,862) — earliest provisional 62/134,422 (2015-03-17) · Application: US18/597,642, filed 2024-03-06 · Published: US20240380873A1 2024-11-14; granted US12413698B2 2025-09-09 · Status: US active — anticipated expiration 2036-03-17 · Cited by: 89

The smart-contact-lens sibling of US11461936B2 — filed as a continuation nine years into the family and granted in September 2025, evidence the line is still live. Claim 1 is built around a camera-on-contact-lens architecture: a smart contact lens carrying a camera (centrally positioned — “within the most central 15% of the user’s eye” in dependent claim 4) with an image-projection display arranged around the camera’s perimeter; a database stores a retinal map; and the processor receives the camera image, modifies it according to the retinal map, and displays the modified image — “whereby displaying the modified image comprises correcting eye defects of the user”. Dependent claims define the remapping machinery: generating the retinal map with a boundary marking the area to be modified; an image-distortion map that shifts image data inside the boundary outward along rays from the boundary’s estimated center so image data from center to edge is compressed (scotoma avoidance by construction); and generating multiple retinal maps with different boundaries, selectable on user input — effectively swappable correction “prescriptions”. Embodiments put the processor and database in a headset wirelessly linked to the lens; the disclosure adds gaze tracking (“to accurately capture where the user is looking”), correction of ordinary refractive defects alongside the central-vision correction, and the same indication list (AMD, Stargardt’s, macular hole, end-stage glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa). Classified as adjacent technology, not a neural prosthesis: like its sibling, it remaps optical input onto remaining sighted retina.

EP3741109B1 — Eye center of rotation determination, depth plane selection, and render camera positioning in display systems (Magic Leap, 2024)

Assignee: Magic Leap Inc · Inventors: Samuel A. Miller, Lomesh Agarwal, Lionel Ernest Edwin, Ivan Li Chuen Yeoh, Daniel Farmer, Sergey Fyodorovich Prokushkin, Yonatan Munk, Edwin Joseph Selker, Bradley Vincent Stuart, Jeffrey Scott Sommers · Priority: US provisionals 62/618,559 (2018-01-17) and 62/702,849 (2018-07-24); PCT/US2019/014052 filed 2019-01-17 (WO2019143844A1; WO ceased) · Family: EP19741524.3 (granted as EP3741109B1; divisional EP24160191.3 pending); US 16/250,931 plus four continuations; further members in CN, JP, KR, AU, CA and IL · Published: EP3741109A1 2020-11-25; granted EP3741109B1 2024-04-24 · Status: EP active — anticipated expiration 2039-01-17 · Cited by: 71

Magic Leap’s granted European member of its eye-center-of-rotation family — core AR/MR display geometry rather than a prosthesis. The claimed head-mounted display system projects virtual content into the eye at varying divergence/collimation so it appears to originate from different depth planes, and uses eye-tracking cameras plus processing electronics to estimate the eye’s center of rotation: from the cornea-sphere center of curvature, a pupil-center-derived optical axis and a fixed translation along it (dependent claims), from the intersection of multiple axis determinations while the eye rotates, and — in claim 1 — from an ellipse-like array of eye-image positions with linear paths through it defining a circular gaze region. Claim 8 covers presenting content rendered “as if captured by a camera” whose aperture sits at the determined center of rotation (or closer to it than the retina is) — the render-camera positioning of the title; claims 9–11 extend the estimation (multiple gaze directions over time; normals through circular regions), and claim 12 mirrors it as a two-eye method claim. Classified as adjacent technology, not a visual prosthesis — it sits with CN118090164B (Yongjiang Laboratory) in the AR head-mounted-display layer, included because the display-side problems it solves (eye-rotation geometry, render perspective, depth planes) recur in any see-through HMD used to deliver structured visual content to a diseased eye; the specification’s background cites an artificial-vision retinal-projection method (US 2015/0189266A) among the prior art it improves on.

US9370417B2 — Foveated retinal prosthesis (Nano Retina Inc, 2016)

Assignee: Nano Retina Inc (Herzliya, IL — nano-retina; company dissolved 2024, cf. retinal-prosthesis-companies) · Inventor: Ra’anan Gefen · Application: US13/827,919, filed 2013-03-14 · Family: PCT/IB2014/059672 (ceased), EP14716415.6 (withdrawn), CN201480012642.1 (expired — fee related) · Published: US20140277435A1 2014-09-18; granted US9370417B2 2016-06-21 · Status: US expired — fee related (adjusted expiration 2034-05-06) — every family member has lapsed · Cited by: 15

Nano Retina’s “foveated” implant reconceives the retinal prosthesis as a space-variant photosensor imager: a fully intraocular device (ambient-light photosensors + driving circuitry + stimulating electrodes) whose photosensor array mimics the retina’s own foveal gradient — photosensors densest centrally (centre-to-centre spacing ~4–50 µm central vs ~100–500 µm peripheral; concentric square/hexagonal/circular ring layouts, cluster and multi-portion variants with monotonically increasing spacing) with an optional magnifying lens element over the central region. The granted claims centre on the complementary electrode geometry: electrode density is lower (claim 2’s preferred: zero) in a central zone positioned over the foveola — the zone is at least 100 µm and less than 1000 µm across — than in the surrounding array (≥4, typically 10–100 electrodes/mm²; stepped sub-portions with 10–100 µm vs 300–500 µm electrode spacing). The rationale is anatomical: the penetrating electrodes (50–500 µm long) are intended to drive inner nuclear and ganglion cell layers, which are “largely not present in the foveola”; the central zone is left undriven (or used only for anchoring, e.g. a metallic tack), and foveal-region signals can be displaced to radially offset electrodes instead (the spec: an electrode farther from the array centre fires for a photosensor closer to it), so stimulation current is not injected into the foveola. The array is sized for parafoveal coverage (row/column length ~2–4 mm; range 1–6 mm). Every family member has lapsed (US/CN expired — fee related; EP withdrawn; PCT ceased), consistent with Nano Retina’s shutdown: the underlying device (NR600) had reached first-in-human study (9 patients; NCT04295304 terminated end-2023) before the company dissolved in spring 2024.

US11520154B2 — Artificial retina system based on augmented reality (Cellico Inc, 2022)

Assignee: Cellico Inc (Pangyo/Seongnam, KR — cellico) · Inventors: Eui Don Han, Lee Woon Jang · Priority: KR 10-2021-0024499 (2021-02-24) · Family: KR1020210024499A, CN202210056146.2A, US17/650,587, EP22156362.0A — all active · Published: US20220269087A1 2022-08-25; granted US11520154B2 2022-12-06 · Status: US active — adjusted expiration 2042-02-10 · Cited by: 2

Cellico’s granted system splits a retinal prosthesis into an AR-sunglasses external unit and a fully intraocular implant, with the heavy image pipeline deliberately kept outside the body: camera → image processor → microdisplay on the lens inner surface (or a small projector / mirror-refraction relay), and the processed image travels through the eye’s own optics to the implant, which converts it into retinal stimulation (stimulus pulse amplitude proportional to display light intensity, per the specification). The stated goal is to escape the area/power limits of in-eye processing — in conventional designs “it is difficult to implement a high-resolution stimulation pixel due to an area of the chip” — so the implant carries no image-processing burden, needs no high-rate data link, and can stay small. A digital controller wirelessly supplies power/data; from that data the implant adjusts stimulation pulse width/period and can selectively drive subsets of its pixel array (odd/even-pixel interleaving shown, 10,000-pixel example); user-selectable image-processing algorithms (edge enhancement, contrast enhancement, inverse filtering, “non-flicker vision”) are chosen during a fitting pass before pulse parameters. Claims also cover the sunglasses form factor (on-lens display, neck-worn battery, bone-conduction speaker notifications, sunshade blocking ambient light, smartphone-linked navigation) and the two-phase fitting method. Architecturally the collection’s third “camera-glasses + implant” family alongside the Pitham projector families and the Twenty Twenty IOMD headset — distinct in its display-to-implant optical downlink, and with a wholly live (KR/CN/US/EP) family; the specification cites KR 10-2157955 (2020) as a related-art document.

US12589243B2 — Ocular devices and controller interfaces for ocular therapy (I-Lumen Scientific, 2026)

Assignee: I-Lumen Scientific Inc (Bloomington, MN — i-lumen-scientific; record: “I Lumen Scientific Inc”) · Inventors: James R. Chiapetta, Paul Rockley, Ronald Schuchard · Priority: US provisional 63/418,375 (2022-10-21) · Application: US18/491,385, filed 2023-10-20 · Published: US20240131334A1 2024-04-25 (and US20240226555A9, 2024-07-11); granted US12589243B2 2026-03-31 · Status: US active — adjusted expiration 2044-07-19 · Citations: 204 patent / 40 non-patent (fresh grant — no cited-by figure yet)

The collection’s electrotherapy entry — a treatment device, not a prosthesis (cf. the optical-treatment and low-vision adjacent entries above; OkuStim TES in retinal-prosthesis-companies; and the family’s KR member, “Electrode Systems and Methods for Vision Treatment”, already named in the patent-landscape table on retinal-prosthesis). A glasses-form wearable carries periorbital electrodes — upper (forehead, ~0.5–2.5 cm above the orbital margin) and lower (maxilla) conductive pads either side, hydrogel-wettable to reduce tissue-interface impedance, wire-linked to a patient-worn pulse generator (or embedded in the frame) — delivering current-controlled stimulation up to ~2 mA at 50 µA resolution, with programmes such as a 20-minute 20 Hz pattern (25 ms pulses, polarity alternated every 500 ms) or a multi-phase ramp (2 ms → 20 ms → 50 ms → 2 s pulses, phases of 1/2/7/10 min). The granted claims cover the phosphene-threshold calibration method: as amplitude ramps under the patient’s own UI control, first partial-field phosphenes define the partial phosphene threshold (PPT) and full-field phosphenes the FPT; therapy is then delivered sub-PPT or between PPT and FPT, separately per eye (claim 7 maps the four electrodes to per-eye therapy; claim 4 adds a “confirm therapy” pulse check that briefly exceeds the PPT), with twitch/discomfort as stop conditions. The specification’s premise: electric fields that fire retinal neurons may “preserve or invigorate neural capability in the region of the maculae, reversing or arresting progress of macular degeneration” — sub-threshold dosing explicitly contemplated. Classified as adjacent technology — non-invasive electrotherapy, not a visual prosthesis: it modulates the retina rather than substituting for it, and pairs with the company’s i-Lumen AMD System in a 120-participant sham-controlled pivotal trial (FDA IDE clearance, March 2026).

US11157072B1 — Direct retinal projector (Apple Inc, 2021)

Assignee: Apple Inc · Inventors: Richard J. Topliss, James H. Foster, Alexander Shpunt · Application: US15/413,310, filed 2017-01-23 (provisional 62/299,137, 2016-02-24) · Family: US only — a continuation, US17/473,901 (filed 2021-09-13), granted as US12093446B1 (2024-09-17) · Published: granted US11157072B1 2021-10-26 (B1 — no pre-grant application publication) · Status: US active — adjusted expiration 2038-01-02 · Cited by: 10 (25 patent / 1 non-patent citations)

Apple’s “direct retinal projector” is the display half of a head-mounted AR/VR system — with no screen anywhere in the path: an RGB scan projector’s laser light field is reflected off a see-through curved ellipsoid mirror in front of the eye and focused through the pupil to form the image directly on the retina, the single curved mirror replacing conventional near-eye optics and reducing the scanning degrees of freedom required. The design targets the accommodation–convergence conflict: small-diameter scanned laser beams greatly increase the eye’s effective depth of focus, removing accommodation from the retinal-projection focus (and, the specification notes, potentially compensating for myopia/hyperopia). Two subsystems are claimed: (1) gaze tracking by retinal return — an IR beam, beam-splitter-aligned to the centre of the scanned light field, enters the pupil, reflects off the retina (a “bright pupil”), and returns through the ellipsoid mirror and a 2D scanning mirror onto a quadrant-cell position sensing detector (PSD); a control loop tilts the scanning mirror to re-centre the return beam on the PSD, which by construction re-aims the scanned light field into the pupil as the eye moves; and (2) an adjustable focusing lens (optical MEMS with a flexible element; ~10 dioptre range) on the combined RGB-laser beam that is adjusted with the azimuth angle across the optically powered ellipsoid mirror, and can also deliberately defocus regions of the projected image to shape depth-of-field (fast-axis focusing via acoustic-standing-wave optics is floated). Example parameters (TABLE 1): 1–3 mm beam diameter at the projector, 20 to >30 pixels/degree, 60–90 Hz frame rate, 40° field of view per pupil position, ±7–10° pupil-position range, and user depth of focus from 0.5–1.5 m to infinity (0.2 m to infinity with focus tracking) — consumer AR/VR targets. Classified as adjacent technology, not a visual prosthesis: it writes imagery onto a healthy retina for AR/VR (the collection’s third adjacent HMD-display entry alongside CN118090164B and EP3741109B1), but its problem set — coupling scanned light through a moving pupil, compensating mirror optical power across the scan, eye-safe laser scanning — is shared with the projector-glasses halves of prosthetic systems (cf. Pitham’s exit-pupil matching).

US12093446B1 — Direct retinal projector (Apple Inc, 2024)

Assignee: Apple Inc · Inventors: Richard J. Topliss, James H. Foster, Alexander Shpunt · Application: US17/473,901, filed 2021-09-13 (continuation of US15/413,310, 2017-01-23; provisional 62/299,137, 2016-02-24) · Family: US only — parent granted as US11157072B1 (2021) · Published: granted US12093446B1 2024-09-17 (B1) · Status: active — adjusted expiration 2037-11-16 · Cited by: 10 (25 patent citations); 17 claims

The continuation grant of the entry above, on the same specification. The claims are re-scoped toward the complete product: claims 13–14 cover the retinal-return gaze loop (IR return beam from the retina via the ellipsoid mirror and scanning mirror onto the PSD, read relative to the PSD centre); claim 15 claims the binocular device as a whole — paired ellipsoid mirrors, scanning mirrors and projectors with two adjustable focusing lenses — whose controller explicitly (a) compensates the optical-power variation across each ellipsoid mirror, (b) alters beam divergence to match object distances in the projected image, and (c) defocuses image regions the wearer is not looking at (foveated depth-of-field rendering); claim 16 covers the combined-beam MEMS projector; claim 17 the IR beacon + PSD arrangement. With the 2021 parent, this gives Apple a live two-patent block over gaze-tracked scanned-light-field retinal projection into the late 2030s.

EP4088155B1 — Foveated display system (Meta Platforms Technologies, 2026)

Assignee: Meta Platforms Technologies LLC · Inventors: Gang Li, Lu Lu, Mengfei Wang, Seungjae Lee · Application: US16/735,409 filed 2020-01-06; PCT/US2021/012161 (2021-01-05); EP21702140.1 · Family: US member granted as US11294184B2 (2022-04-05); CN & JP pending; KR withdrawn; WO member ceased · Published: granted EP4088155B1 2026-03-11 · Status: active — anticipated expiration 2041-01-05 · Cited by: 19 (31 patent citations); 11 claims

Meta’s hardware-foveated AR display: a foveal module (display + beam-steering mirror + focusing element + eye tracking + an angular- and wavelength-selective lens — holographic/volume-grating) steers a high-resolution virtual image into the foveal region of the tracked pupil, while a peripheral module — projector + polarization/angular/wavelength-selective diffuser (cholesteric liquid crystal) sitting inside a pancake lens — writes low-resolution wide-FOV imagery, the same selective lens reflecting the foveal light while transmitting the peripheral image and real-world light. A switchable Pancharatnam–Berry phase grating stack (two PBP gratings around a switchable half-wave plate) extends the beam-steering range so the foveal image can reach the full field of view (claim 6); HMD claim 11. The hardware analogue of foveated rendering — and, with the same-day US filings below, a granted transatlantic block on dual-resolution foveal/peripheral near-eye optics.

US11294184B2 — Foveated display system (Meta/Facebook Technologies, 2022)

Assignee: Facebook Technologies LLC (now Meta Platforms Technologies) · Inventors: Lu Lu, Gang Li, Seungjae Lee, Mengfei Wang · Application: US16/735,409, filed 2020-01-06 · Published: granted US11294184B2 2022-04-05 · Status: active — anticipated expiration 2040-01-06 · 20 claims

The US member of the EP4088155B1 family — same specification (foveal module + peripheral module; diffuser-in-pancake; PBP steering stack). Its HMD claims (14–20) spell out the in-series arrangement, the cholesteric-LC diffuser, the pancake-lens propagation distance, gaze-tracked MEMS foveal focus, and a combiner for real-world light.

US11448803B1 — Pancake lens including diffuser (Meta/Facebook Technologies, 2022)

Assignee: Facebook Technologies LLC · Inventors: Lu Lu, Gang Li, Seungjae Lee, Mengfei Wang · Application: US16/735,414, filed 2020-01-06 (same-day companion of the foveated-display filings) · Published: granted US11448803B1 2022-09-20 · Status: active — adjusted expiration 2040-04-27 · 20 claims

Claims the pancake lens with the diffuser inside the folded optic (half-wave plate + polarization/angular-selective mirror + half mirror), plus projector and method claims — the compactness trick that lets the peripheral module sit within glasses-scale depth.

US11668932B2 — Switchable Pancharatnam-Berry phase grating stack (Meta Platforms Technologies, 2023)

Assignee: Meta Platforms Technologies LLC · Inventors: Lu Lu, Gang Li, Seungjae Lee, Mengfei Wang · Application: US16/735,425, filed 2020-01-06 · EP member: EP20842790.6 (withdrawn) · Published: granted US11668932B2 2023-06-06 · Status: active — adjusted expiration 2040-08-06 · Cited by: 11 (27 patent / 22 non-patent citations); 17 claims

Claims the switchable PBP grating stack that multiplies the MEMS mirror’s steering range: two PBP gratings around a switchable half-wave plate that toggles between bypass and diffract modes (claims 1–7), a second perpendicular pair for 2D steering (claims 4–5), and display/method claims driven by detected pupil position (claims 8–17). The enabling component for full-FOV foveal steering at MEMS-achievable deflection angles.

WO2023219925A1 — Virtual reality display system (Meta Platforms Technologies, 2023 — ceased)

Assignee: Meta Platforms Technologies LLC · Inventor: Dongmin Yang · Application: PCT/US2023/021306, filed 2023-05-08; priority US17/989,145 (2022-11-17) · Published: WO2023219925A1, 2023-11-16 · Status: ceased (lapsed without national-phase entry — the “expired” record)

Meta’s micromirror-array retinal projection concept: a camera tracks the pupil centre; a projection light source supplies a collimated beam; a micromirror array (electromechanical or microfluidic pixels) is addressed so that, for each point of a 3D virtual object, the selected mirror is tilted to reflect the beam through the pupil centre along the computed source→object-point→pupil line — beam by beam, the image is written directly onto the retina (stereoscopic mapping among the method claims). Conceptually the same “write the light field onto the retina” goal as Apple’s direct retinal projector, but steering per-pixel with a mirror array instead of a scanning mirror; the filing lapsed, leaving Apple’s family the live big-company IP in retinal projection.

US12061332B2 — Method and device for projecting a pattern of interest on a modified retinal area of a human eye (Pixium Vision SA, 2024)

Assignee: Pixium Vision SA (PRIMA line; IP now owned by science-corp) · Inventors: Bastien Durban, Jean-Baptiste Floderer, Maxime Denefle, Martin Deterre · Application: US17/593,275, filed 2020-03-27 (nationally of PCT/EP2020/058875; priority PCT/EP2019/057967, 2019-03-28) · Family: US active + continuation 18/796,038 pending; CN, JP, AU active; CA & EP pending · Published: granted US12061332B2 2024-08-13 · Status: active — adjusted expiration 2040-12-17 · Cited by: 3 (13 patent citations); 19 claims

The PRIMA glasses projector patent. A pulsed (NIR) input beam is modulated and divided by a modulation micromirror array (DMD) into a pattern of pulsed sub-beams — the visual scene, pixelised — with individual pulse-width modulation of each micromirror’s duty cycle, synchronised with the period of the pulsed light source and capped at duty ≤ 0.5 for ocular/implant safety (including single-fault conditions). The camera + processing claims divide captured visual information into bright/dark pixel patterns driving the mirrors. This is the image-projection engine of the clinical PRIMA-1/PRIMA-2 glasses — the pattern-generation half of the photovoltaic system (chip half below).

US12201827B2 — Photosensitive pixel structure with increased light absorption and photosensitive implant (Pixium Vision SA, 2025)

Assignee: Pixium Vision SA (now science-corp) · Inventor: Martin Deterre · Application: US17/537,808, filed 2021-11-30 (continuation of US15/737,865 → US11197993B2; PCT/EP2016/001073, 2016-06-23; priority EP 15001873.7, 2015-06-24) · Family: US/EP/JP/CN/AU/CA/ES active · Published: granted US12201827B2 2025-01-21 · Status: active — anticipated expiration 2036-06-23 · Cited by: 6 (25 patent citations); 18 claims

The chip-optics half of PRIMA: a reflective layer on the back surface of the silicon substrate (buried oxide and/or metal, e.g. aluminium; titanium ≥100 nm) plus a hermetic titanium/ceramic backside seal, reflecting unabsorbed NIR light back through the photodiodes — raising absorption so the implant can stay ≤30–50 µm thin while still generating stimulation-grade photocurrents. Original grant US11197993B2 (2021-12-14) covers the same disclosure.

US10980997B2 — Photosensitive pixel with shunt resistor (Pixium Vision SA, 2021)

Assignee: Pixium Vision SA (now science-corp) · Inventor: Martin Deterre · Application: US15/573,696, filed 2016-04-28 (PCT/EP2016/000690) · Family: US/EP/JP/CN/AU/CA/ES active · Published: granted US10980997B2 2021-04-20 · Status: active — adjusted expiration 2037-05-28 · Cited by: 8; 22 claims

Claims the shunt-resistor dimensioning rule for photovoltaic pixels: R = a·D_areaⁿ·E_area (a ≈ 10⁶; n ≈ −1.81), balancing rapid post-pulse discharge (no residual DC; fast charge balance) against charge lost in the resistor — the circuit-level optimisation behind safe biphasic pixel pulses, tied to hexagonal pixels with circumferential return electrodes (the PRIMA pixel geometry).

US20250249280A1 — System and method for optical stimulation (Science Corporation, 2025 — pending)

Applicant: Science Corporation · Inventors: Elizabeth Carroll, Max Hodak, Alan Mardinly, Yifan Kong, Antonia Elsen · Application: US19/044,388, filed 2025-02-03 (PCT/US2025/014345; priority provisional 63/548,591, 2024-02-01) · Published: US20250249280A1, 2025-08-07 · Status: pending

Science Corp’s next-generation projector architecture for the PRIMA line (and the optogenetic “Science Eye”): light source + spatial light modulator + steering module + dual sensor stack + processing, projecting a time series of patterned light frames onto the retina (optogenetically modified cells or a retinal implant). The advance is two-stage eye tracking: external eye features (pupil, corneal reflection) drive coarse beam steering, while retinal features (individual cells, vasculature, features of the retinal implant itself) drive fine corrections of the light pattern — aiming at cell-resolution mapping between the projected frame and retinal cells, including correction of system/ocular aberrations. Multi-wavelength sensing (separate tracking source; dichroics) and retinal-health monitoring among the further claims. A later related filing, US2026/0166320 (“System and method for optical stimulation of a retinal implant”, filed 2025-12-03), continues the line explicitly for retinal implants.

US9114004B2 — Flexible artificial retina devices (Iridium Medical Technology, 2015)

Assignee: Iridium Medical Technology Co Ltd · Inventor: Long-Sheng Fan · Filed: 2011-10-26 (US13/282,423) · Granted: 2015-08-25 · Status: Active

Flexible subretinal implant with photosensors + microelectrodes on a common silicon substrate, thinned to bend to ≤12.5 mm radius (human eyeball curvature). >250 pixels/mm² density. Perforation holes for fluidic flow. The foundational patent for the HARP4k system. See iridium-medical.

CN111588984B — Implanted retina electric stimulator and implant thereof (IntelliMicro Medical, 2021)

Assignee: IntelliMicro Medical Co Ltd · Inventors: Dai Yuchang (戴聿昌), Pang Changlin (庞长林) · Filed: 2020-05-27 (CN202010459953.XA) · Granted: 2021-02-19 · Status: Active (anticipated expiration 2040-05-27) · PCT: PCT/CN2021/085593 (ceased)

Epiretinal implant with annular metal shell (titanium/platinum/iridium) + suture hooks (non-closed loop, same side) for scleral fixation. Two suture hooks on same side — opposite side wrapped by conjunctiva. Reduces suture points, suture difficulty, and surgical trauma. Part of the IMIE 256 system. See intellimicro-medical.

WO2021238415A1 — Implant apparatus, and visual prosthesis having same (IntelliMicro Medical, 2021)

Assignee: IntelliMicro Medical Co Ltd · PCT filed: 2021 (PCT/CN2021/085599) · Status: Published

Implant apparatus: metal annular shell + cover + flexible electrode (lead-in, cable, stimulation portion) + electronic device package. Electrical stimulation loop passes from current drive output → lead-in → stimulation portion → tissue → annular shell → ground. The metal shell serves as the return electrode.

WO2021238419A1 — Implantation device and visual prosthesis having same (IntelliMicro Medical, 2021)

Assignee: IntelliMicro Medical Co Ltd · PCT filed: 2021 (PCT/CN2021/085670) · Status: Published

Annular metal housing with gap (slit) to prevent eddy current shielding; coil for wireless data/energy; stimulation circuit board extending outward from housing. Gap + thread hole in inverted-T shape. Cover = ceramic, glass, or polymer; housing = pure titanium, platinum, or platinum-iridium alloy.

CN107224666A — Neural stimulation electrode and its manufacture method (Nanochap, 2017)

Assignee: 杭州暖芯迦电子科技有限公司 (Nanochap Electronics) · Filed: 2015-10-26 · Published: 2017-10-03 · Family: AU2018403776B2 (granted)

High-density electrode array on semiconductor substrate: diffusion doping → front-side etch → glass-filled trenches → substrate bonding → back-thinning → metal electrode patterning → peel-off. Flip-chip connection to stimulation chip. Wafer-scale mass production. Electrode shapes freely designable (circle, square, triangle). Underpins Nanochap’s 320-channel retinal BCI. See nanochap.

  • retinal-prosthesis — retinal BCI subcategory

  • visual-prosthesis — combined retina + cortex umbrella

  • pitham-vision — assignee of the families above

  • mindtrix — assignee of CN121944384A (RL cortical control)

  • raytrx — assignee of US11461936B2 and US12413698B2 (mixed-reality vision correction)

  • nano-retina — assignee of US9370417B2 (foveated implant; NR600 lineage)

  • cellico — assignee of US11520154B2 (AR glasses + implant system)

  • i-lumen-scientific — assignee of US12589243B2 (ocular electrotherapy)

  • science-corp — PRIMA, the competing CE-marked photovoltaic system

  • augmented-vision — display/projection technologies for AR & smart glasses (waveguides, foveated optics, retinal projection); discusses the Apple and Meta display patents

Graph View

Backlinks