Riverain Issued U.S. Patents for Imaging Methods with Potential Benefits for Medical, Military and Travel Industries
DAYTON, Ohio – Sept. 24, 2012 – Riverain Technologies, an industry leader and innovator in proprietary image processing and machine learning technologies, announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has awarded the company broad patents for its technologies, opening the door for the company’s software to be used in wider health care applications and in other industries. These two new patents not only protect Riverain’s novel chest X-ray technology, which suppresses bone and calls out suspicious tissue, but also hold enormous promise for the company to bring its breakthrough software to other medical applications, including; CAT scans (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound.
Riverain has been issued U.S. Patent 8,204,292 for its methodology to selectively remove unwanted objects, or features, within images. The technology is used in the company’s premier software, ClearRead Bone Suppression™, which suppresses the ribs and clavicles in a chest X-ray image resulting in the formation of a soft tissue image of the chest. The application provides radiologists with a clearer, unobstructed view of the chest to aid in early detection of lung disease, including lung cancer. Currently employed in chest X-ray, a range of possible applications exist within other imaging modalities including CT, MRI, positron emission tomography (PET), full field digital mammography and tomosynthesis. For example, the methodology has been successfully applied to remove and equalize the tissue in the pectoral muscle in a mammography image.
Riverain’s patented feature suppression technology is ideal for use in a variety of industries outside medical as well, including; military, travel, industrial and document processing applications.
In addition, Riverain was issued U.S. Patent 8,160,335 for its proprietary ComputerAided Diagnosis (CAD) methodology on software or hardware derived images, such as dual energy subtracted soft tissue images and/or bone suppressed images. The technology is used in the company’s ClearRead +Detect™ software, an application that identifies and circles potentially cancerous lung nodules on a bone-suppressed chest Xray image, and/or images captured by modalities such as dual energy subtraction (DES). ClearRead +Detect has been clinically proven to improve the detection of 9- 30mm lung nodules and allow the detection of up to 1 in 2 previously missed lung nodules.1
“These recently issued patents cover some of the methods and processes that give our market-leading software solutions a distinct advantage,” said Steve Worrell, Riverain’s Chief Technology Officer. “Riverain now has an intellectual property portfolio of more than 15 issued or pending patents and welcomes inquiries regarding applications inside and outside the medical field.”
1 Riverain Medical OnGuard FDA PMA Reader Study Results 2009
