Invalidity dossier
US 8666099
Hearing aid and a method for alleviating tinnitus using a notch filter
Current assignee: Widex AS
Added 9/23/2026, 8:20:07 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US8666099B2
Title: Hearing aid and a method for alleviating tinnitus using a notch filter
Assignee: Widex A/S (original and current assignee per the source). Inventors: Jakob Nielsen, Georg Stiefenhofer, Mike Lind Rank, Stine Kohrtz Andersen.
Key dates: Priority date 2010-04-16; filing date 2012-10-12; publication of US20130039517A1 on 2013-02-14; granted 2014-03-04. Anticipated expiration listed as 2030-04-16; legal status listed "Active" (source notes this is an assumption, not a legal conclusion).
Purpose: To alleviate user tinnitus by attenuating audio at a frequency matched to the user's tinnitus, and to allow matching a hearing-aid notch filter to tinnitus using the hearing aid itself—largely without expensive laboratory equipment.
Plain-language scope (from the excerpt): In a first aspect, a hearing aid has an audio input, signal processing unit, output transducer, a notch filter attenuating audio at a frequency matched to the user's tinnitus, switching means to switch the notch filter into and out of the signal path, and switch control means that control switching in response to a predefined trigger event (e.g., activating the notch filter when music or relaxing sounds are detected). In a second aspect, a matching method uses tones presented by the hearing aid to determine a characteristic tinnitus frequency, sets the notch filter's center frequency accordingly, uses presented sound to determine the tinnitus's spectral width, and sets the filter's spectral width accordingly. The excerpt also describes narrow-band noise signals, hearing-threshold measurement, output levels (threshold plus 8–16 dB; 4–8 dB below UCL), and rough/fine and free matching procedures.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8666099](/patent/US8666099)/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claims, complete description, drawings, or prosecution history. The excerpted text is truncated mid-sentence regarding the free matching procedure's stopping criteria. It does not establish claim scope definitively, validity, enforceability, ownership transfers, litigation, or the content/teaching of any prior art beyond the brief mentions of WO-A2-2008/087157 and a PNAS notched-music article.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:41:27 PM
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Litigation summary
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PTAB challenges
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Assignment history
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Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
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