Oculenz Augmented Reality Glasses Awarded the First Medical Patent for AR

Oculenz Boasts The Widest Field-Of-Vision In The Industry, With A 110-Degree High-Resolution Heads-Up Display, In A Wirelessly Connected, Untethered, Micro-Weight Headset

Ocutrx Vision Technologies, LLC, a California based Augmented Reality (AR) Glasses developer today announced that the company’s core AR medical application technology has been issued its first patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The company’s Augmented Reality headset, called Oculenz boasts the widest field-of-vision in the industry, with a 110-degree high-resolution heads-up display, in a wirelessly connected, untethered, micro-weight headset.  The patent also teaches how the Oculenz ARwear can work in conjunction with smart contact lenses as the display and eye-tracking.

“This first patent award validates our core technology for using our AR platform innovations for medical applications,” stated Michael H. Freeman, CEO/CTO and Founder of Ocutrx. “This is a real milestone for creating value for Ocutrx’s patent portfolio and an incredible step forward in securing patent rights around the world,” Freeman said. “We immediately filed a Continuation Patent to focus on the previously filed specification elements incorporating eye-tracking with an AR head mounted display for the larger AR market.”

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The company plans to also market their Oculenz to other sectors including gaming, commercial, industrial, HAZMAT, e-commerce, aerospace, drones and defense. “While many AR companies built a platform first, and are now looking to find a market,” said Scott Evans, M.B.A., Ocutrx COO, “we strategically designed our first ARwear for the medical industry, where there are many highly-motivated buyers, then we intent to expand into the AR market-at-large.”

Ocutrx was founded in 2015 by Michael H. Freeman, an Emmy Award-winning designer of streaming mobile video technology which became the basis for the IEEE 802.11(n) MIMO standard.  Freeman created the first streaming smart-phone video product which was licensed by virtually all of the cell companies which existed in the 1990’s.  The streaming video technology and patents were later sold to Samsung Electronics.

“The Oculenz is the first ground-breaking technology to offer a solution for advanced central visual defects in patients with retinal disease,” said Dr. Thomas Finley, M.D. a Vitreoretinal surgeon and member of the Ocutrx International Medical Advisory Board (IMAB). “This innovative AR device brings a new hope to regain functional vision previously considered impossible. The impact on the individual’s quality of life and retained or regained ability to productively function at home and in the workplace will be immeasurable.”

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The USPTO determined that Ocutrx’s first patent application was allowable covering a diagnostic phase where the patients can wear the Oculenz to map their own retinal defects, alone or with the help of their physicians, and a second corresponding display phase where the video is buffered according to the retinal map and displayed over the patient’s real-world vision. The Oculenz’s buffered display shows all the real-world video image, but none is shown on the exact area of the patient’s eye defect.  Instead, it is directed to the patient’s existing good areas of the macula or near adjacent peripheral retina.

“The Oculenz technology works somewhat like how we all have a natural blind spot in our vision that we do not realize on a day to day basis,” said Dr. Lars Freisberg, M.D., an international Retinal Specialist surgeon, licensed in the U.S., Norway and Germany, and member of the Ocutrx IMAB. “However, you never really see this hole,” explained Dr. Freisberg, “because the brain fills it in with other gathered visual information.”

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“With the Oculenz the idea is that the patient senses the entire image and learns to disregard the defect area through ‘neural adaptation’ due to the ‘plasticity of the brain,’” said Dr.R.Wade Crow, M.D., Neural Ophthalmologist and Assistant Professor of Neuro-Ophthalmology at the University of California-Irvine and member of the Ocutrx IMAB. “Working with visual input, the brain can train itself to not see redundant or unnecessary things.”