Data processing: generic control systems or specific application – Specific application – apparatus or process – Product assembly or manufacturing
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-26
2004-05-04
Picard, Leo (Department: 2125)
Data processing: generic control systems or specific application
Specific application, apparatus or process
Product assembly or manufacturing
C700S118000, C029S896210, C703S001000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06731997
ABSTRACT:
The present invention is especially directed on a method for manufacturing in-the-ear hearing devices, but may also be adapted for manufacturing outside-the-ear hearing devices.
Thereby, throughout the description and claims of the present invention the following terms are used as follows:
Definitions
Hearing device
We understand under a hearing device a device for influencing human hearing. Such a hearing device may be a noise-protection device or even a noise-canceling device, a device for improving human hearing in special situations, as e.g. in noisy environment, thereby selectively communicating with one or more than one persons, music listening in a concert hall etc. Further a hearing device may be an earphone as of a hands-free communication system, or may be an earphone for consumer audio appliances.
A hearing device may thereby especially be a hearing aid device in the sense of a therapeutical device for individuals with hearing loss. As was mentioned above, the hearing device may thereby be an outside-the-ear hearing device or and especially an in-the-ear hearing device.
Retailer:
We understand under the expression “retailer” the instance or location, where individuals buy hearing devices.
Audio needs:
The audio needs of an individual may be therapeutical so as to remedy ill hearing behavior to the standard of normal hearing. Audio needs of an individual may also be needs for noise protection, noise canceling, improved hearing in special situations as mentioned above, good hearing characteristics for consumer audio consumption or for hands-free communication etc. Thus, audio needs may be subdivided in therapeutical and non-therapeutical needs.
Application area for a hearing device:
We understand under this term the individual's shape of the area of his head, whereat a hearing device shall be applied to. Such application area may therefore be the ear itself, surrounding areas behind and around the ear, the ear channel with its most individual structure. Thereby, not only the shape defines for the appliance area, but also the kind of structure, be it bony or rather of soft flesh or rather of cartilage, and its appearance, be it the texture or color of the skin. Further, the application area may be co-defined by individual characteristics, as of the production of sweat and cerumen.
Non-audio needs:
Non-audio needs of an individual and in the present context are e.g. needs with respect to aesthetic appearance as of shell colouring of a hearing device, further with respect to pricing, material of the shell surface, especially where in contact with the area of application and under consideration of individual allergies etc.
Up to now especially in-the-ear hearing aid devices are manufactured in that a individual goes to a retailer, as a consultant center. Either the individual brings, in the case of therapeutical audio needs, audiological data about his ill hearing behavior to such retailer, which data have been retrieved e.g. by a specialized medical doctor. In other cases such audiological diagnostic data are retrieved directly at the consultant's or retailer's location as specialized in audiological diagnostics and data evaluation.
At the consultant center, normally the retailer, the individual discusses with the staff his individual needs under consideration of audiologic data, if necessary, or more generically individual's audio needs as a first set of information. There is further discussed, where the hearing device should be placed, in the ear or outside the ear as examples, as well as the aesthetic appearance such a hearing device would probably result in.
Especially in the case of individual's decision to order an in-the-ear hearing device it is necessary to get information about the individual's ear channel structure as a second set of information.
This is normally done by means of taking a mould of the ear channel and then three-dimensionally scanning such mould. Normally, scanning is done by the hearing device manufacturer in context with manufacturing the hearing device. The retailer thereby sends the mould to the manufacturer altogether with further information collected, and the manufacturer returns after construction of the hearing aid device the hardware to the retailer or, more generically, to the consultant center for approval by the individual.
Very often the device is not approved by the individual e.g. due to uncomfortable fitting at the application area or due to aesthetics, which have turned out differently than foreseen in individual's imagination, and also because the manufacturer could not exactly know the real needs of the individual.
The retailer tries to communicate to the manufacturer further information about desired amendments on the device, which are nevertheless not always precise enough to ensure the next run of manufacturing and approval to be a full success. Very often the retailer even tries to satisfy individual's needs by experienced self-overworking of the device, especially by hand-amending the outer shell of the hearing device.
One reason for such frequent forth and back, especially of in-the-ear hearing devices, is imprecise specification of the situation as to how the mould has been taken, i.e. with respect to chin position. Another problem is that due to retailer's own shape amendment of the hearing device the manufacturer is not informed about the finally approved and released shape, so that a replacement necessitates a complicated trial-and-error procedure, especially if the individual changed to another consultant or retailer.
It is an object of the present invention to remedy the cited drawbacks of individual hearing device manufacturing.
This is reached according to the present invention by the method of manufacturing a hearing device individually and for an individual comprising the steps of conceiving the hearing device as a function of
first information about individual audio needs;
second information about three-dimensional shape of the application area for the hearing device at the individual;
third information about individual non-audio needs for the hearing device;
fourth information about feasibility of hearing devices,
thereby three-dimensionally visualizing the concept of the hearing device computer-based to the individual and amending said concept as visualized controlled by said individual, and freezing data defining for said concept of said device as conceived on approval by said individual or by a person authorized by said individual for subsequent realization of hearing device hardware.
Thereby, just from the beginning of conceiving the hearing device for the individual, be it a new hearing device, or be it, e.g. on repair, or on amending a hearing device, the individual and/or a person authorized by said individual is most involved in the construing procedure in that he monitors on a visualizing screen his personal hearing device as it progresses in construction. The individual may thereby influence by his individual needs and by communicating such needs finally to a conceiving computer system, the construction of the hearing device, and it is only when the individual approves the visualized concept of his future hearing device that the collected data is readied for a hardware production step.
In a first preferred embodiment of the inventive method visualizing and conceiving the hearing device as a function of the above mentioned first to fourth information is performed at one local computer system, i.e. centralized. Thereby, one and the same computer system provides not only for the visualization ability, but also for the computer power for three-dimensionally representing and calculating, e.g. by vector-graphic representation, the hearing device as a function of the said information input to such centralized computer.
In a second and even more preferred embodiment visualizing and conceiving the hearing device, again as a function of the first to fourth information, as mentioned above, is realized at more than one decentralized computer system, which systems a
Hessel Hans
Widmer Christoph
Frank Elliot
Pearne & Gordon LLP
Phonak AG
Picard Leo
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