Beginning at NYU in Jan 2013 within the context of a Patents Translation course delivered online, this blog seeks to uncover the patents that rock our daily lives....
Four hundred years after The Mayflower, a commemoration year totally eclipsed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Nilda's story is a contemporary tale of immigration to the USA. WhileTheyWait.org is an organization founded by Brooklyn Defender Services, Raices Texas, ACLU SoCal, musicians Benny Blanco, Calvin Harris & Miguel, and filmmaker Jake Schreier. An organization dedicated to providing legal services, free of charge, and survival assistance "while they wait", to America's most disenfranchised, the approximately one million asylum-seekers. Asylum seekers with stories, like Nilda and her 2-year old son Keyden.
Nilda's Story - A Film by Jake Schreier (Jan 2019)
For a
modest sum, you might purchase your own personal Stemoscope wireless stethoscope. No prescription or
license required. According to UK medical
student Youtube review, the Stemoscope is probably not medical-grade, simply because of
the costs and red tape, associated with obtaining medical-device clearance (Burton, 2019; Ollie Burton). A
comment, which suggests, together with the website’s M.D. review, that the
device is powerful enough to pick up body sounds. However, this also means that the Stemoscope is a gadget that has not been cleared by the
Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA, or equivalent agency
elsewhere—except perhaps in China where the Stemoscope was apparently used, on an emergency basis, as a monitoring and safe auscultation device, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Wuhan (Stemoscope blog;Newscast). Emergency use, considering that. the use of classic stethoscopes with tubing becomes incompatible with the protection against infection afforded by the hazmat suits that medical professionals were required to wear.
Still, in the US, such items as device accuracy and reliability, among many others, remain unapproved even if this sort of certified testing might have been performed during the R&D process. With these cautions in mind, the Stemoscope‘s
brand name shares four letters “STEM” with a now-famous educational acronym (Hefferman, 2019): Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, where the device has found
one of its niches.
The
Stemoscope is a wireless, Bluetooth®-enabled stethoscope device that pairs with
a mobile device such as an Android or Apple smartphone. The mobile device,
equipped with a dedicated app, processes and amplifies the sounds captured by
the Stemoscope, in turn sending them to Bluetooth®-enabled, or wired, earphones. The
Stemoscope app (see animated gif below) instructs on where to position the
Stemoscope on your chest to listen to heart and lung sounds, and on your arm
for blood pressure sounds. The app also enables storage of recordings for archiving, sharing, and emailing.
Two new apps, the PetStemo and BabyStemo, respectively
enable users to listen to the heartbeats of their pets and baby in-utero.
The Babystemo app also offers to record in-utero sounds for reassuring playback
to newborn infants, or for sharing with family and friends. In other words, couples no longer need to wait for prenatal visits to hear their baby's heart beating.
Below, an animated gif of the Stemoscope app, together with images of two Stemoscope models: the Standard and the PRO.
The more recent PRO version is able to pair directly with Bluetooth®-enabled earphones for listening to sounds, without recording; or to pair directly to Bluetooth®-enabled smartphone and PC for listening to sounds, without earphones. The PRO model also has a noise-canceling function, as well as longer battery life. Pink and blue-colored models of the standard version also exist.
EKO’s wireless auscultation stethoscope and
cardiac sensor not only capture body sounds that are transcribed by proprietary
software into readable graphs and numeric data. The EKO System also comprises a
patented AI-powered method of analyzing the sounds captured and transcribed, in
view of assisting physician diagnosis.
The EKO System AI-powered method of diagnosis assistance consists in
comparing the body sounds recorded and transcribed from a patient with those
stored in a database of prerecorded health conditions, using a combination of neural-network
technology and proprietary machine-learning algorithms designed to update the
database. Thus, the EKO System not only enables remote diagnosis within the
anticipated context of telemedicine, for cost-effective delivery and continuity
of care to remote and underserved populations, and within the unexpected
conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also sets itself apart by providing analysis of the sounds captured and
transcribed wirelessly. An analysis of sounds captured and recorded, which
returns a list of potential conditions, matching specific sample health
conditions stored in the database. A list of conditions, including “regular”,
presented in their order of likelihood, with or without the matching sound
graphs extracted from the database, which the physician, in turn, can use to
inform his or her diagnosis.
The AI-powered EKO System invention is recited in the utility patent US9973847B2, titled Mobile device-based stethoscope system. The invention recites the hardware and software components of the system, as well as the database architecture and segmentation of sounds, that together comprise the mobile-based stethoscope system, designed “to serve as a decision-support tool for physicians”.
The matching database sounds are specifically recited for patient heart sounds. However, the scope of the invention extends to other body sounds captured by a stethoscope, such as respiratory or digestive sounds, which would then be compared and matched to a different and corresponding set of pre-recorded conditions, populating the database.
For anyone interested in listening to a variety of body sound conditions, the following videos are extracted from the EKO System sound Libary. The videos respectively provide sounds for heart and lung conditions, in particular: normal heart sound, atrial fibrillation and pericardial rub for heart conditions recorded via EKO Digital Stethoscope; crackles, wheezes and egophony for lung conditions recorded via EKO Core Digital Stethoscope.
Heart sound
Lung sounds
The abstract
of the EKO System AI-powered diagnosis assistance invention is included below.
A mobile device-based
stethoscope system that transmits, records, and analyzes sounds to generate a
list of matching conditions and facilitates easy attachment across various
electronic medical record platforms and other means of communication. The
invention is configured to allow the use of either an integrated wireless
stethoscope, or an in-line adapter for a conventional stethoscope. Patient
sounds are sent from the selected stethoscope head to the mobile device having
a software application that allows for the analysis, attachment, and further
manipulation of the data. [Abstract US9973847B2]
Beginning November 21, 2020 through
December 21, 2020, California is on a curfew
lockdown. A curfew lockdown is a limited form of stay-at-home order where
everyone, except essential workers, residing in the Widespread tier Purple-Alert counties has been ordered to
stay-at-home, from 10 pm to 5 am the next morning (California All). Curfew lockdown measures were declared
by Governor Gavin Newson on November 19, 2020, in an effort to beat the second rising curve of alarmingly high rates of COVID-19 infections, in California, and throughout the USA. Purple tier-alert
counties are those counties where COVID-19 is widespread, measured as more than 7.0 cases recorded daily per 100k people, and more than 8% of the population is infected, in the whole county (California All).
In Europe, French President Emmanuel
Macron ordered a new national lockdown on Oct. 28 through December 1, 2020 (Macron, Oct. 28, 2020). On
the same day, October 28, in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel defended new “soft”
lockdown measures, effective November 2, for 1 month (Staff, DW, Oct. 28, 2020). Speaking on behalf of the
coronavirus and to the coronavirus, the German Chancellor stated:
COVID-19 - ‘I’ve
got the perfect host here. These people live all over the planet. They are
globally networked and are social creatures, they can’t live without social
contacts. They have a hedonistic inclination, they like to party, it couldn’t
be any better.’
Humanity – ‘No,
virus, have you learnt nothing from evolution? We humans have shown again and
again that we are damned good at adjusting to difficult circumstances. We’ll
show you that you have chosen the wrong host.’ (Merkel, quoted in Polternam, Oct. 29, 2020.)
In Italy and Spain, where respectively
46,464 and 41,688 deaths have been recorded, new lockdown
measures have also been ordered in an effort to slow the spread of the second
wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (Tondo & Jones, Nov. 17, 2020).
On this day, November 22, 2020, The WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) dashboard is posting a global pandemic infection rate of 57,882,183
confirmed infections, and 1,377,395 deaths.
The 2020 US Presidential Elections subsume at least
three significant firsts in US history.
- Kamala Harris is the first female Vice President-elect, and the first female of East Asian and African descent ever nominated on
a presidential ticket. Considering that 2020 is the year commemorating 100
years of US women’s right to vote, these firsts are a bitoverdue. What is perhaps more
important, as Harris put it in her victory speech, on Nov. 7, 2020, is the real
possibility of female leadership, on a par with males, as no doubt envisioned by the suffragettes, during their long struggle to secure the right to vote. In Harris’ own terms:
“But while I may be the first woman
in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching
tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
Addressing women and little girls, in particular, Harris further stated:
"Dream with ambition, lead
with conviction, and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply
because they’ve never seen it before." (Staff, Global News, Nov. 7, 2020)
- The most unsettling
first of the 2020 presidential elections has been the incumbent’s refusal to
concede, even claiming victory after 270 Electoral
College votes had already been secured, and the Associated Press had called the election. Not to mention now, since 290 Electoral College votes are on record
for the opposing party. A first that also appears overdue, although for reasons that differ from those that have prevented women from accessing the highest positions of decision-making.
True, that
all votes must be counted before an election can be certified, and that this
year the counting took much longer, due to the record number of mail-in
votes, topped with a recounting of votes in Georgia, all of which might conceivably explain the delay in conceding. True also, that the US Attorney General
William Barr authorized US Attorneys to pursue “substantial allegations of
voting irregularities” before the
election results were certified, thereby reversing the US Department of Justice
protocol not to pursue allegations of
fraud until after an election is
certified. An authorization that served to fully legitimize the incumbent’s right to immediately challenge the Election
Results (Hymes, Nov. 10, 2020).
However, it also appears that all of the
lawsuits filed by the incumbent in six states, claiming
irregularities in the counting process on Elections Day, were dismissed. Indeed, Judges, dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds of “insufficient evidence – just speculation, rumors or
hearsay.” (Fahrenthold, et.al, Nov. 10, 2020). Finally,
the incumbent’s own Law Offices across the country have also begun dropping their
representation of the incumbent’s voting fraud cases,
leaving little time for the election results to be overturned, before they are
certified by the Secretaries of State of individual States, on November 23 (Gerstein,
Nov. 13, 2020).
Meanwhile
also, as early as November 7th, international Heads of States from
Germany, Great Britain, France, Ireland, Greece, Belgium, and most recently
China and the Vatican, have been offering “Welcome! and "Welcome back!” congratulations for
the projected winners of the November 3rd Elections, thereby
recognizing the Biden-Harris projected victory called by the AP (Quinn, Nov. 7
2020). A situation, which the incumbent's opponent
has warned could “reflect poorly on his legacy” (Greenwood, Nov 11, 2020), and
that has led various critics to wonder whether, at the end of the day, the incumbent might not be tarnishing his own reputation (Bendix, Nov. 12, 2020).
- A third significant
first is the unfolding of the 2020 elections in a background of relentless hardship, arising with
the first and now second waves of COVID-19 infections. A background, that
prevents much of the joyful mass celebrations that usually accompany a peaceful transition of
power. With European countries on a second major lockdown (Buchholz, Nov 5, 2020), a new mutation of the coronavirus found on mink farms in Denmark (Gorman, Nov. 8, 2020), the US is not alone in registering a second wave of record-high increases
in the number of COVID-19 cases. During the past week, an average of approximately
150,000 cases were recorded, representing a 76% increase in cases, compared to
the two previous weeks. A long hard winter already looms with a total number of
cases, in the US, approaching 11 million, and almost a quarter-million deaths. (Coronavirus
Outbreak, Live Update, NY Times).
Bilingual English<>French Election terminology was compiled while waiting for the 2020 US Presidential election suspense to subside, and for the election to be called, considering the biggest turnout ever, estimated at 66.9%, (Le Monde, 4 Nov. 2020).
Besides contesting the actual results of the vote, at issue is the record number of mail-in-votes, recommended as a measure for preventing further pandemic spread. States have different procedures for counting election day in-person votes, mail-in votes, and early votes, all of which impact the results of the vote, post-election day.
In regards to the potential for mail-in voting fraud, mail-in voting (also called absentee voting) dates back to soldiers during the Civil War. A system that has gradually expanded to include:voters that were not in the military, initially requiring an excuse for not voting in person to obtain an absentee ballot, to absentee voting without an excuse, to all-mail voting options, permanent automatic mail-in ballot systems in five states Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington, and temporary automatic mail-in ballot systems in 22 states, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to other mail-in voting options nationwide that might involve having to request an absentee ballot (Waxman, 2020; Ballotpedia). In fact, election experts Charles Stewart III (MIT) and Amber McReynolds (U. of Illinois) found 0,00006% fraud out of 250 million votes cast in the US in the past 20 years. Their findings were based on an analysis of the Heritage Foundation's Voting Fraud Database, where they examined a total of 1200 voting fraud cases, 204 of them involving fraudulent use of absentee ballots, resulting in 143 criminal charges, in 20 years. Findings that prompted both scholars to conclude that "Vote fraud in the United States is exceedingly rare, with mailed ballots and otherwise." (MIT SCHASS, 2020)
Precedence in presidential election disputes, such as the Bush v. Gore electoral dispute on recounting Florida votes, in the year 2000, was prompted by a different issue, concerning machines having missed votes (referenced as undervotes). The US Supreme Court [Bush v. Gore531 U.S. 98 (2000)] granted a stay on recounting votes (by hand) (7:2), following an order to manually recount votes by the Florida Supreme Court, thereby reiterating the Bush victory.
Incidentally, as some people might recall, the star election terminology item, arising in 2000 within the Florida context of recounting votes, was a small piece of paper called the "chad" (translated as "confetti" in French). A "chad" is the little piece of paper that creates a hole when a voting card is punched, using Votomatic-style punched ballots. Improperly torn chads, called "hanging chads", or "swinging chads" (see Ballot Card image for variations), gave much grief to those folks responsible for then manually recounting votes in Florida, in 2000 during an interim period of time, post-election day and prior to the US Supreme Court decision.
English
Français
incumbent
candidat au pouvoir, sortant, titulaire
challenger
candidat de l’opposition, opposant, adversaire
ballot
le scrutin
poll (station/booth)
les urnes
to flip balance of power
faire basculer l’équilibre du pouvoir
Electoral College
Collège électoral
battleground State
État champs de bataille
swing/flip state
État-pivot, qui oscille, État-bascule, État disputé
The striking design
of the EKO DUO, combining both stethoscope and ECG is (Electrocardiogram) is covered
in the US Design patent USD851253S1, titled Mobile cardiac sensor. As a reminder, the difference between a utility
patent and a design patent is significant, both in terms of content and form. According
to the USPTO Manual of Patent Examination
Procedure:
“a utility patent” protects
the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an
article looks (35 U.S.C.
171) [MPEP Chapt. 1502.01; [R-07.2015]].
Below, the design patent cover-page figure drawing, showing the ornamental aspects of the back and front of the device, together with an image of the marketed EKO Duo, also
showing the back (push button) and front (dual sensors) of the device.
