A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

CompuMed (Los Angeles), the developer of the OsteoGram bone-density screening system, reported receiving a U.S. patent for an automated method and system to assess the extent or progression of joint-damaging diseases such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

CompuMed said that the patent, “Method, Code, and System for Assaying Joint Deformity” (No. 10,625,444), contains 27 claims that cover its image-processing technology, including a new template method that can be used to detect the extent of joint-damaging disease and monitor its progress by comparing the patient’s data to a normal database, as well as prior test results.

Xiaoli Bi, CompuMed VP and CFO and one of the authors of the patent, said that it protects the company’s ability “to extend the range of applications for our imaging technologies to include Arthritis disease monitoring.”

CEO Maurizio Vecchione said the patent “paves the way for new product strategies” and enables the company “to pursue valuable partnership and licensing relationships in a wide spectrum of skeletal health segments.”

The company claims expertise and intellectual property in telemonitoring imaging and analysis designed to improve healthcare provider workflow and patient care while reducing costs. Its core products, the OsteoGram and CardioGram, are FDA-cleared and reimbursable by Medicare.

In other patent news, BioForce Nanosciences (Ames, Iowa), a subsidiary of BioForce Nanosciences Holdings (Berkeley, California), reported receiving U.S. Patent and Trademark Office notice that its “protein nanoarray” patent (No. 6,573,369) has been upheld following a request for re-examination by a third party.

BioForce commercializes ultra-micro arrays using its Nano eNabler system features sizes in the one micrometer to 20 micrometer-diameter range. The Protein Nanoarray patent covers arrays of proteins having feature sizes of less than one micron squared and containing one or more different protein species. This size scale represents the ultimate level of miniaturization for biological diagnostic and discovery tests, according to the company.

Dr. Eric Henderson, BioForce’s founder, CEO and co-inventor of the patent, said, “Our success in this re-examination gives us confidence that as we make progress toward commercial development of miniaturized diagnostic tests we will have the appropriate intellectual property protection. We have created prototype Protein Nanoarrays as described in this patent and are positioned to begin to commercialize them when the market is ready.”

The company said that its flagship product, the Nano eNabler molecular printer, gives it a platform for further development and discovery.