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:
Jul. 13, 1999
Filed:
Sep. 26, 1997
Jeffrey H Goll, Lake Oswego, OR (US);
Hartwell H Whitney, Portland, OR (US);
Metra Biosystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and methods determine externally in a vertebrate subject the porosity and non-connectivity of a bone. A preferred embodiment has an acoustic transceiver with a pair of acoustic transducers disposed in a specified spatial relationship with one another, such that an acoustic signal is transmitted from one to another via the bone. The transmission path through the bone corresponding to the acoustic signal analyzed by the system may be varied, with values derived from measures of acoustic transmission through differing locations in the bone stored in different locations of a memory. A location processor is provided for selecting a target location based at least in part on the values stored in the memory for defining a region of interest with respect to which a measure of bone porosity is determined.