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. 24, 2001
Filed:
Aug. 07, 1997
Joel A. Kennedy, Arden Hills, MN (US);
St. Croix Medical, Inc., Minneapolis, MN (US);
Abstract
A hearing assistance system includes multiple middle ear transducers for sensing vibrations of an ossicle or other auditory element. The hearing assistance system is configured to accommodate an unknown or variable direction of the vibration. Two transducers are arranged to transduce nonidentical directional components of the vibration into electrical signals which are then combined. The combined electrical signal is approximately independent of the direction of the vibration, or has improved frequency response, or has an amplitude that is approximately independent of the direction of the vibration. The combined electrical signal may result from a square root of sum-of-squares, sum of individually filtered signals, differentiation, or other techniques. The hearing assistance system analogously accommodates three dimensional variability of the direction of vibration using three middle ear transducers.