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Innovega receives patent allowances for wearable display technology
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Innovega announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued two notices of allowance to complement 11 of the company’s existing U.S. patents.
The first patent allowance relates to a contact lens with regular vision correction optics and a central lenslet that enables focusing a display in the spectacle plane as well as a light-polarizing filter that blocks display light from the surrounding region, according to a press release from Innovega.
The second claims methods of regulating water vapor transmissibility while maintaining oxygen transmissibility in ultra high oxygen-permeable lens materials.
Both patents were filed by inventors and scientists Jerome Legerton, OD, MS, MBA, FAAO, a member of the Primary Care Optometry News Editorial Board; William Meyers, PhD, former vice president of science and technology for Paragon Vision Sciences; and Jay Marsh, according to the release. Innovega also received notices of allowance in 2017 from Korea and the European Union for the foundation patent for its technology.
Innovega said in the press release that it aims to deliver stylish, lightweight, wearable display technology with high resolution and a wide field of view.
“We are uniquely positioned to solve the optics problems that have limited the usability of wearable display technology to date,” Innovega CEO Steve Willey said in the release. “When you couple our advanced innovation with a market ripe to embrace wearable display technology, you have what every tech company aspires to obtain.”
Innovega said its system combines contact lenses or surgically implanted lenses with stylish glasses, providing the wearer with a discreet entertainment and information experience. Necessary prescriptions can be applied to the contact or implanted lenses.
Phase 2 clinical trials have been completed, and the company is preparing for phase 3 clinical trials in North America with the intention of pursuing market clearance.
“The industry leaders are consistent in their proclamation that the bottleneck to success with wearable displays is the optics,” Legerton told PCON in an interview. “The high-technology optical solutions like waveguide, light-field and relay optics are hitting their limits in field of view, eye wear bulk and compromised resolution. Placing the optics on or in the eye is a sound solution. The good news is that it becomes medical technology that appropriately requires an eye care practitioner.
“Augmented and virtual reality systems present new challenges to the visual system, and it only seems right that skilled professionals serve a role in their adoption,” he said. “Vergence accommodation conflict is now well recognized as a problem with the current generation of virtual reality headsets. Optometry plays an important role in managing the problems patients have with these devices.”
Legerton continued: “Modeling suggests that eye-borne optics significantly reduce the eyestrain from vergence-accommodation conflicts. Again, the good news is that the Innovega system requires an eye care professional because it is contact lens- or IOL-enabled.” -- by Nancy Hemphill, ELS, FAAO
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Jerome A. Legerton, OD, MS, MBA, FAAO, is a member of the PCON Editorial Board and holds 54 issued U.S. patents and has 70 pending applications.
Disclosure: Legerton is co-founder and chief clinical and regulatory officer with Innovega Inc., co-founder of SynergEyes Inc. and co-inventor of Paragon CRT.