USPTO grants SPO Medical innovative baby heart rate monitoring patent

Feb 19 2010

SPO Medical Inc. (OTC: SPOM), a leading developer of biosensor and microprocessor technologies for use in portable monitoring devices, today announced it has been granted a new and innovative baby monitoring patent relating to a non-invasive device or system for monitoring and measuring the heart rate of a baby to activate an alarm when the level falls outside a predetermined range. This issuance by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Patent # 7,650,176) brings the Company's intellectual property (IP) portfolio to a total of twelve patents. This latest patent, developed by the SPO Medical engineering team, increases the Company's technological competitive edge in providing an innovative, high performance solution for a market application applicable to most family homes.

This new patent focuses on commercial applications relating to the implementation of reflectance pulse oximetry for monitoring babies and infants particularly for ages up to 12 months. During their first year, babies have increased susceptibility to breathing disturbances and respiratory ailments which could lead to physiological distress. Early detection of a respiratory ailment could provide the time to administer aid necessary to prevent further deterioration of a baby's wellness. Many types of consumer baby monitors are currently available but most do not give the advance warning necessary for the caregivers to administer aid. In addition, certain baby movement monitors are known to have a high level of "false alarms" as they have no way to distinguish between the lapses in breathing, which can be normal for a baby, and respiratory distress. This could result in increased anxiety for the caregivers or cause them to ignore a signal after responding repeatedly to false alarms. The new patent granted to SPO specifically addresses this concern by providing a pro-active solution through a real-time baby monitoring application.

Michael Braunold, President and Chief Executive Officer of SPO Medical commented: "The granting of this innovative patent could have a major impact on the baby monitoring market - it enables the commercialization of a pro-active monitoring device that can help safeguard a baby during those first-year critical months especially when parental or caregiver anxiety is potentially high. With over 8 million births annually in the USA and Western Europe alone, our objective is to make available this unique technology to client corporations who have an interest in commercializing and distributing a product which delivers parental reassurance attributes with real-time monitoring of babies particularly while they are sleeping."

The Company has established a dedicated web site relating to this homecare application; it can be viewed at http://www.spobaby.com along with a video demonstration of the proposed commercial unit and a facility for making additional enquires to the Company into this innovative product opportunity.