Aperio Technologies, Inc., (Aperio), a global leader in digital pathology for the healthcare and life sciences industry, announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued the company patent No. 7,738,688 entitled, "System and Method for Viewing Virtual Slides."
“Our high performance image viewing and server technology enables our customers to realize the efficiencies of remotely viewing digital slide images. We are pleased to enhance our intellectual property portfolio, which allows us to continue to provide our customers with the highest performance digital pathology systems available.”
The field of digital pathology is enabled by converting glass microscope slides into digital whole- slide images that can be viewed, managed, and analyzed. A key feature of any digital pathology system is the ability to view digital slides remotely, across local and wide area networks. The '688 patent describes novel techniques for processing and displaying digital slide images stored on a server, which facilitate rapid viewing of digital slides. This technology also enables real-time panning and continuous and rapid zooming of very large digital slide images without loss of image fidelity, as well as simultaneous collaborative viewing of digital slides and associated data.
Aperio continues to be the dominant leader and pioneer in digital pathology. This patent extends the intellectual property rights associated with Aperio's award-winning digital pathology systems, including its patented linear array-based ScanScope™ slide scanning systems—which create seamless, true color whole slide images at giga-pixel resolution from an entire glass slide in minutes. The patented viewing technology is a key component of Aperio's Spectrum™ image management (PACS) software, which provides applications for storing, managing, viewing, and analyzing digital slides.
Dirk G. Soenksen, CEO of Aperio, commented, "Our high performance image viewing and server technology enables our customers to realize the efficiencies of remotely viewing digital slide images. We are pleased to enhance our intellectual property portfolio, which allows us to continue to provide our customers with the highest performance digital pathology systems available."
Aperio's patent portfolio encompasses all of the elements that comprise a digital pathology system, including digital slide creation, data management, advanced visualization and image analysis. Aperio's intellectual property portfolio comprises over 80 issued and pending patents world-wide. Aperio is the global digital pathology leader with an installed base of more than 700 systems in 34 countries.