Surgery – Diagnostic testing
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-16
2003-04-15
Nasser, Robert L. (Department: 3736)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
C600S481000, C600S483000, C600S529000, C600S532000, C600S538000, C600S544000, C600S545000, C600S546000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06547728
ABSTRACT:
A device that allows a user to know information relating to one or more of his or her biological clocks.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a device and a method that allows a user to know information relating to one or more of his or her biological clocks. A biological clock is a quasi-periodic cycle of variations of a value that represents the natural state of the user.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The technical problem underlying the present invention is new: for multiple reasons, every individual wants to better understand his or her own biological resources and how he or she functions. The reduction in time spent at work and the development of part time work and leisure activities incites each to manage his or her activities as a function of his or her own rhythms. The technical problem underlying the present invention includes determining the values of at least one biological clock and allowing them to be known by the user.
The invention is particularly used to help the user to:
manage one or more of his or her sleep cycles, especially by using a device designed to awaken the sleeping user (devices commonly called alarm clocks);
manage pauses between periods of intense activity;
select an appropriate time to begin an activity; and
select an appropriate time to end an activity;
evaluate his or her ability, at a given moment, to effectively perform an activity;
evaluate his or her ability to effectively perform an activity of a longer duration than a biological cycle.
The inventor has asked himself about the possibility of putting a device or method that provides information regarding a user's biological clocks to the use of any individual from the general public.
The term “general public” is not to be considered herein as a simple commercial constraint without technical consequences on the problem underlying the present invention: so that the device and method envisioned by the present invention are for the “general public,” their implementation must not require any medical protocol, nor restrictions imposed by individual insurance policies, nor cause the user to have to obtain help from another person, nor cause the user to follow more than a few minutes of instructions, nor impede the activity, concentration ability, or rest of the user, nor handicap the user in any way, and it must not give the user an abnormal facial appearance.
Therefore, the implementation of the present invention must not be more dangerous, less comfortable, or less discreet than other everyday objects that exist in the everyday routine of a member of the general public, such as a watch, jewelry, an alarm clock, a pillow, an electric blanket, a calculator, an electronic pocket organizer, a pocket television, a computer and monitor, a walkman, earphones, or glasses.
The terms “comfortable” and “discreet” as used herein must be used technically, as they are used in ergonomics. Some objective criteria can also be associated with each of these terms; for example, ten percent of the population that are accustomed to a physical interaction between themselves and a device similar to a particular implemmentation of the device envisioned by the present invention should not have their attention monopolized by the device, aside from periods of manipulation or usage of this device, throughout a day of interaction with the device. Alternatively, the same proportion of the population should, under the same conditions, have normal activity and rest.
The present invention also envisions a user friendly (human like) device and method; that is, where the time it takes the user to learn how to use the device and become accustomed to it is of the order of only a few minutes, and, in all cases, less than one hour, after which the user can return his attention to his normal routines. It should be observed that the term “human like” is a technical term in ergonomics that allows one skilled in the art to take practical measures to exclude different embodiments that are, at first glance, preferable because they are used for analyzing biological clocks, thus excluding, for example:
methods that require the placement of electrodes on the eyes, the use of rectal probes, the drawing of blood, or the analysis of excretions (see: below for the explanation of the prejudices of one skilled in the art); and
methods that impose limits on the user's freedom of movement.
In some aspects, the present invention also envisions safeguarding against accidents caused at least in part by the sleepiness of night workers or night conductors by helping the user to be more aware of his or her biological state.
Some further technical problems that aim to resolve at least some aspects of the present invention have to do with the difficulty of obtaining and processing variations in the biological or physiological state, which are relatively common in the human being, in such a manner that the result of the processing is not made void by the environment in which the device and the method of the invention is implemented, and by the eventual voluntary activity of the user.
The variation of the obtained signal can thus, at the same time, be weak in comparison to the absolute value of the signal and in comparison to the changes due to the environment and the eventual voluntary activity of the user. This expresses a technical problem common to many aspects of the present invention.
The inventor has therefore removed himself from the medical protocols linked to the analysis of biological clocks, as they are described in the book “Biological Clocks,” edited in 1998 by Yvan Touitou, Excerpta media, editions Elsevier, Amsterdam, Holland. These protocols enforce the placing of electrodes, by a physician in a medical experimental laboratory, on the face or skull of the animal being examined, with limitations to its movements, its feedings, its activities, its sleeping time, and the drawing of blood or the taking of its rectal temperature. The examined animal can therefore have neither normal activity, nor normal concentration ability, nor normal rest.
The actual analysis of human biological clocks is limited to the circadian cycles or to cycles of a duration longer than a day. It is occupied mainly with ways to offset these cycles by illumination at various times and for various durations, or by injecting chemical substances in the body. The interest of many of these researches is to reduce the effects of shifted schedules for travelers suffering from jet lag.
No attempt to provide the analyzed subject with information representing an instantaneous phase (or relative position) in the cycle of variations corresponding to a biological clock has been effectuated.
On the other hand, the watches, clocks, and alarm clocks used these days provide nothing but the time and/or an alarm, and not one bit of information concerning the capacity of the user to utilize the following moments for one activity or another.
The alarm clocks used these days permit a wake up time to be chosen, but function independently of the biological functioning of the user, the time the user fell asleep, the length of the period of wakefulness preceding the time the user fell asleep, the sleep cycles that have passed, and the probable quality of the user's following wakeful state.
To determine a sleep cycle, the one skilled in the art is inclined to use a detector of eye movements because the only sleep cycle that shows visible characteristics is paradoxical sleep, and only that sleep cycle is characterized by eye movements. Incidentally, paradoxical sleep is also known in other literature as “rapid eye movement” sleep, or REM sleep, and in French “phase de mouvements oculaires,” or PMO.
For example, the documents FR 2 597 995 and FR 2 634 913 present a device designed to awaken a user, and uses electrodes implanted in the eye region to detect eye movements. This device is not applicable because there is a risk of accidents linked to the electrodes by the eyes, and the electrodes disturb the user's sleep. Besides, the use of conductive gel, necessary for
Mallari Patricia C.
Nasser Robert L.
Young & Thompson
LandOfFree
Device for measuring organism condition does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Device for measuring organism condition, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Device for measuring organism condition will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3064965