Testing and training cognitive ability: Key Neurotech Patent #16

– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 6,632,174

Today we are fea­tur­ing a key 2003 patent assigned to Cog­nifit ltd — fas­ci­nat­ing to reflect how the brain train­ing field has evolved in 14 years! (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing a foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patent a day, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 6,632,174: Method and Appa­ra­tus for test­ing and train­ing cog­ni­tive ability

• Assignee(s): Cog­nifit ltd
• Inventor(s): Shlo­mo Breznitz
• Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neu­rocog­ni­tive Training
• Issue Date: Octo­ber 14, 2003

SharpBrains’ Take:

The Detailed Descrip­tion of the ‘174 patent accu­rate­ly con­tex­tu­alis­es the teach­ings of the patent when it recites “the present inven­tion uti­lizes analy­sis, men­tal exer­cise and inter­ven­tion in an attempt to increase cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, improve speed of reac­tion, and train both func­tion­al cog­ni­tive atten­tion­al, per­cep­tu­al, and lin­guis­tic abil­i­ties and var­i­ous aspects of mem­o­ry.” In oth­er words, the ‘174 patent pro­vides gen­er­al pur­pose approach­es for cog­ni­tive train­ing. The ‘174 patent also includes broad inde­pen­dent claims (a total of sev­en) though it is uncer­tain how some lim­i­ta­tions may impact claim scope (e.g., “receiv­ing a motion input” recit­ed in claim 1). Inter­est­ing­ly, tech­niques are described for break­ing cog­ni­tive assessments/tasks into dis­crete skills and seg­ments for pre­ci­sion train­ing of areas that require addi­tion­al atten­tion or present bot­tle­necks, there­by estab­lish­ing a mech­a­nism for deep or delib­er­ate train­ing. While the spec­i­fi­ca­tion is some­what brief (with only sev­en illus­tra­tion sheets and sev­en pages of writ­ten mate­r­i­al), the broad claim set and gen­er­al pur­pose cog­ni­tive train­ing tech­niques are amongst the fac­tors con­tribut­ing to iden­ti­fy­ing the ‘174 patent as a key non-inva­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent.

Abstract:

A method for test­ing and/or train­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty, includ­ing the steps of test­ing a pre­lim­i­nary cog­ni­tive lev­el of a user and receiv­ing results rep­re­sen­ta­tive there­from. Accord­ing to the results, the cog­ni­tive lev­el may then be bro­ken up into sep­a­rate dis­crete cog­ni­tive skills, and one or more tasks may be cre­at­ed, each task relat­ed to each of the sep­a­rate dis­crete cog­ni­tive skills. The one or more tasks may then be pre­sent­ed to the user and so that a cur­rent cog­ni­tive lev­el of the user is re-test­ed, and results rep­re­sen­ta­tive there­from are received. This process may be repeat­ed at least one time.

Illus­tra­tive Claim 1. A method for diag­nos­ing and train­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty of a user, the method comprising:

• pre­sent­ing a stimulus
• receiv­ing a motion input gen­er­al­ly in response to said stimulus
• ana­lyz­ing cog­ni­tive skills of said motion input for a diag­no­sis to select­ing one or more tasks to train said cog­ni­tive skills

To learn more about mar­ket data, trends and lead­ing com­pa­nies in the dig­i­tal brain health space –dig­i­tal plat­forms for brain/ cog­ni­tive assess­ment, mon­i­tor­ing and enhance­ment– check out this mar­ket report. To learn more about our analy­sis of 10,000+ patent fil­ings, check out this IP & inno­va­tion neu­rotech report.