The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 01, 1998
Filed:
Dec. 24, 1996
Jerome F Witt, Andover, MA (US);
Patrick G Rafter, Woburn, MA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
An ultrasound imaging system enables discrimination between heart chamber blood flow and blood flow in a heart wall and includes a transducer for transmitting ultrasound pulses into a patient and for receiving ultrasound echoes from blood flow targets within the patient. A beam former/buffer converts the received ultrasound echoes into echo data patterns from which a relative velocity of a blood flow target within said patient is determinable. A strong filter preferentially enables passage of echo data pattern signals which represent a velocity that is higher than a velocity of echo pattern data signals from cardiac wall blood flow targets in the patient. A weak filter partially inhibiting echo signals from low velocity tissue targets. A selection circuit is responsive to outputs from the weak filter circuit and is further responsive to control signals from the strong filter circuit that indicate echo pattern data signals that exceed a threshold, to convert to a reference value, echo signals from the weak filter circuit which positionally correspond to targets which produce the echo data pattern signals that exceed the threshold.