nuh media thread, page-7490

US Ear Device Patents in September 2018

November 6, 2018

https://hearinghealthmatters.org/he...-hearing-aid-hearable-patents-september-2018/

Extract from article below -

A Rose by Any Other Name



Fig 1. Samsung 10067735, “Ear wearable type wireless device and system supporting the same”
At the same time, consider that Hearables are only one accessory in the ever-expanding IoT universe. As far as Apple is concerned, Hearables by any other name would communicate as well (their patent doesn’t name Hearables, but refers to them as “companion devices”. Being on top is a fleeting thing, depending on words and images used in the next cycle of technological innovation.

We’re not a household word at the US patent office. To date, only one patent awarded in the entire USPTO system contains both “ear wearable” and “wireless” in its title. That’s Samsung’s #10067735 (awarded 9/4/2018, Fig 1), which could keep Earables on top for quite awhile.

That patent describes a binaural set of devices (Fig 1) in which one contains a printed circuit board that can include all sorts of things (communication circuit, wireless IoT communication, wireless charging) which can communicate with all sorts of other things in and external to the unit’s housing (e.g., gyro and geomagnetic field sensors; magnet and proximity sensors; gesture and grip sensors, biometric sensors, etc etc).

The key words in the Samsung patent that resonate to this writer are “without being connected to the audio data source,” (see Claim 1 and Claim 15). Perhaps the days of having to have phone in hand are numbered and we will be truly hands free at last.