Recent Patents in Signal Processing (October 2011) - Medical Imaging

For our October 2011 edition we focus on patents in the area of Medical Imaging. The selection below includes patents issued in the recent past, and includes inventions on signal processing methods for segmentation and detection in volumetric datasets, tracking implants in medical images, using signal processing to mimic medical procedures, and new methods for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. If you have an interesting patent to share when we feature Medical Imaging-related patents the next time, or if you are especially interested in a signal processing research field that you would want to be highlighted in this section, please send email to Shantanu Rane (rane AT merl DOT com).

US 8,027,715, "Non-linear correlation models for internal target movement", by S. Sayeh, filed 29 September 2005, issued 27 September 2011, assigned to Accuray, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA).

US 8,027,526, "Method for providing a 3D X-ray image dataset of a patient's heart", by J. Boese, J. Hornegger, G. Lauritsch, M. Prummer, filed 30 October 2007, issued 27 September 2011, assigned to Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (Munich, DE).

US 8,026,729, "System and apparatus for in-vivo assessment of relative position of an implant", by J. Kroh, F. Cros, C. Courcimault, filed 1 April 2009, issued 27 September 2011, assigned to CardioMEMS, Inc. (Atlanta, GA).

US 8,023,710, "Virtual colonoscopy via wavelets", by R. Summers, J. Li and S. Greenblum, filed 12 March 2007, issued 20 September 2011, assigned to The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC).

US 8,023,705, "Method for reconstructing image from echo planar imaging sequence", by D. Weng and W. Zhang, filed 28 September 2007, issued 20 September 2011, assigned to Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (Munich, DE).

US 8,022,701, "Method and apparatus for simultaneously acquiring multiple slices/slabs in magnetic resonance system", by J.-H. Chen, T.-D. Chiueh, E. Wu and L. -W. Kuo, filed 17 December 2008, issued 20 September 2011, assigned to National Taiwan University (Taipei, TW).

US 8,022,704, "Method for producing a magnetic resonance image of an object having a short T2 relaxation time", by Y. Qian and F. Boada, filed 21 May 2010, issued 20 September 2011, assigned to University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, MA).

US 8,018,456, "Smooth gray-level based surface interpolation for an isotropic data sets", by A. Blumhofer and C. Seltz, filed 19 October 2007, issued September 13, 2011, assigned to Brainlab AG (Feldkirchen, Germany).

US 8,009,900, "System and method for detecting an object in a high dimensional space", by A. Barbu, Y. Zheng, J. Yang, B. Georgescu and D. Comaniciu, filed 17 september 2007, issued 30 August 2011, assigned to Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. (Malvern, PA).

US 7,995,810, "System and methods for image segmentation in n-dimensional space", by K. Li, X. wu, D. Chen and M. Sonka, filed 23 June 2006, issued 9 August 2011, assigned to The University of Iowa Research Foundation (Iowa City, IA) and University of Notre Dame du Lac (Notre Dame, IN).