Ear Device Patents for December 2021

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Hearing Health & Technology Matters
January 11, 2022

Facebook patent 11202138

Hearable is a relatively new word in our vocabulary. It’s only made the title of 6 US patents since it first appeared in 7/2019. Not until this month has a patent title specified a hearable of the type we see on the market:  

  • Three patents aim to authenticate or detect of existing devices (HarmonApple and Qualcomm)
  • Two Facebook patents describe tragus conduction devices (#10,531,173 & #10999668)
  • Qualcomm’s #11206499 describes a Hearable device comprising integrated device and wireless functionality

Whether it’s entitled Hearable or Hearing Aid or something else with broader application, Big Tech is working the angles. This month’s patent 11202138 from Facebook is a CIC in our nomenclature (see Fig), though you might not guess it from the title:  Miniature high performance MEMS piezoelectric transducer for in-ear applications

 

The December 2021 Patent List

 

Description

Patent Number

Assignee

Issued

Noise reduction for implantable hearing prostheses

11191960

Cochlear Limited (Macquarie University, AU)

12/07/2021

Hearing device user communicating with a wireless communication device

11195518

Sonova AG (Staefa, CH)

12/07/2021

Method and apparatus for binaural rendering audio signal using variable order filtering in frequency domain

11195537

Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, Yonsei University (Seoul, KR), Wilus Institute of Standards & Technology Inc (Seoul, KR), Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute (Daejeon, KR)

12/07/2021

Active noise reduction in open ear directional acoustic devices

11197083

Bose Corporation (Framingham, MA)

12/07/2021

Visual communication of hearing aid patient-specific coded information

11197105

Intricon Corporation (Arden Hills, MN)

12/07/2021

Configurable hearing device for use with an assistive listening system

11197107

Starkey Laboratories Inc (Eden Prairie, MN)

12/07/2021

Power management in low power wireless link in a hearing aid system

11197108

Oticon A/S (Smorum, DK)

12/07/2021

Hearing device with active vent comprising solenoid

11197109

Sonova AG (Staefa, CH)

12/07/2021

Rechargeable battery with non-metallic casing for a hearing device

11197110

Sonova AG (Staefa, CH)

12/07/2021

Interaural time difference crossfader for binaural audio rendering

11197118

Magic Leap Inc (Plantation, FL)

12/07/2021

Miniature high performance MEMS piezoelectric transducer for in-ear applications

11202138

Facebook Technologies LLC

12/14/2021

Alignment between charging elements of a hearing device and a charger

11202157

GN Hearing A/S (Ballerup, DK)

12/14/2021

Low-power active bone conduction devices

11202158

Cochlear Limited (Macquarie University, AU)

12/14/2021

Methods of self-calibrating of a hearing device and related hearing devices

11202159

Cochlear Limited (Macquarie University, AU)

12/14/2021

Predictive head-tracked binaural audio rendering

11202164

Apple Inc (Cupertino, CA)

12/14/2021

Hearing aid tool

D938589

Applicant: Little, Charlie (Farmville, NC)

12/14/2021

Receiving audio from a listening device associated with a selected geographic area

11204735

International Business Machines (Armonk, NY)

12/21/2021

Low energy deep-learning networks for generating auditory features for audio processing pipelines

11205419

International Business Machines (Armonk, NY)

12/21/2021

Audio stream detection

11206055

Sonova AG (Staefa, CH)

12/21/2021

Magnet array for securing wireless listening devices

11206473

Apple Inc (Cupertino, CA)

12/21/2021

Wearable electronic device and strap arrangement with charging ports for charging ear-worn electronic devices

11206475

Starkey Laboratories Inc (Eden Prairie, MN)

12/21/2021

Hearing assistance device that uses one or more sensors to autonomously change a power mode of the device

11206476

Eargo Inc (Mountain View, CA)

12/21/2021

Hearing device with service mode and related method

11206496

GN Hearing A/S (Ballerup, DK)

12/21/2021

Activating a mode of a hearing device

11206497

Sonova AG (Staefa, CH)

12/21/2021

Hearing aid and hearing aid output voice adjustment method thereof

11206498

Pixart Imaging Inc (Hsin-Chu County, TW)

12/21/2021

Hearable device comprising integrated device and wireless functionality

11206499

Qualcomm Inc (San Diego, CA)

12/21/2021

Method for operating a hearing instrument and a hearing system containing a hearing instrument

11206501

Sivantos Pte Ltd (Singapore, SG)

12/21/2021

System and method for evaluating an ear seal using normalization

11206502

Cirrus Logic Inc (Austin, TX)

12/21/2021

Optical spectroscopy circuitry for assessing ear health

11206971

Cactus Medical LLC (Irvine, CA)

12/28/2021

Audio enhanced hearing protection system

11211043

Bongiovi Acoustics LLC (Port St Lucie, FL)

12/28/2021

Hearing device

11212610

Boco Inc (Tokyo, JP)

12/28/2021

Adaptive noise cancelling of bone conducted noise in the mechanical domain

11212625

MED-EL Elektromedizinische Geraete GmbH (Innsbruck, AT)

12/28/2021

Dynamic filter

11212626

Earlens Corporation (Menlo Park, CA)

12/28/2021

Hearing device and method for operating a hearing device

11212627

Sivantos Pte Ltd (Singapore, SG)

12/28/2021

Method for generating binaural signals from stereo signals using upmixing binauralization, and apparatus therefor

11212631

Gaudio Lab Inc (Seoul, KR)

12/28/2021

Generating binaural audio in response to multi-channel audio using at least one feedback delay network

11212638

Dolby Laboratory Licensing Corporation (San Francisco, CA)

12/28/2021

Hearing protection device

D939779

Honeywell International Inc (Morris Plains, NJ)

12/28/2021

 

Holly Hosford-Dunn, Hearing Health MattersHolly Hosford-Dunn, PhD, owned and operated a dispensing audiology practice in Tucson and was active in management of HearingHealthMatters.org through 2017.  She holds BA degrees in Communication Sciences, Psychology and Economics; MA in Communication Disorders; PhD in Hearing Sciences. Following post-doctoral work at Max Planck Institute (Munich, DE) and Eaton-Peabody Auditory Physiology Lab (Boston), she joined the Stanford medical school faculty as director of audiology. She has authored/edited numerous text books, chapters, journals, and articles and taught Marketing and Practice Management in a variety of academic settings. She continues to consult and write on topics related to hearing health care vis-à-vis consumer demands, professional training, technological advancement, capital investment, industry consolidation, regulatory control, product and service distribution, and strategic pricing.

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