Arizona Patent of the Month – January 2026

Introduction: A Milestone in Acoustic Engineering

The Anatomy of a Breakthrough

In the annals of medical diagnostic history, certain intellectual property filings mark distinct inflection points—moments where the trajectory of a technology shifts from incremental evolution to discontinuous disruption. US Patent No. 12,514,551 represents precisely such a juncture in the field of ultrasonography. Filed on October 21, 2020, and officially titled “Systems and methods for improving ultrasound image quality,” this patent was recently awarded the prestigious Arizona Patent of the Month. The selection process for this honor was not arbitrary; it utilized advanced Artificial Intelligence algorithms to rigorously evaluate over 1,000 potential patents granted within the region. The AI assessment model prioritized statistical indicators of novelty, technical complexity, and the breadth of claims, ultimately identifying this invention by Maui Imaging, Inc.—and its inventors David J. Specht, David M. Smith, Elias M. Atmeh, and Josef Call—as the standout achievement of the period.

Selection Criteria: The Imperative of Real-World Impact

While technical novelty is a prerequisite for patentability, the Arizona Patent of the Month award specifically privileges inventions with profound real-world impact. The AI-driven selection committee identified Patent 12,514,551 not merely for its elegant mathematics, but for its potential to solve a lethal gap in current medical capabilities: the inability to image through bone and air with portable devices. In the current standard of care, diagnostic ultrasound is strictly limited by “acoustic windows”—specific areas where the body is soft enough to transmit sound waves. This limitation renders traditional ultrasound useless for diagnosing traumatic brain injuries (blocked by the skull), adult lung conditions (blocked by air and ribs), or complex abdominal trauma (blocked by bowel gas). By fundamentally rewriting the physics of image reconstruction to overcome these barriers, this patent promises to democratize advanced diagnostics, bringing CT-level clarity to the point of injury—whether that is a Level 1 Trauma Center, a forward operating base in a conflict zone, or a rural clinic in a developing nation. It is this capacity to save lives in austere environments that elevated the patent above its peers.

Technical Superiority and Competitive Benchmarking

The Physics of Failure: Why Competitors Fall Short

To understand the superiority of the invention described in Patent 12,514,551, one must first dissect the inherent failure modes of the incumbent technology. The dominant players in the ultrasound market—giants like Philips, GE HealthCare, and Siemens Healthineers—have spent decades refining Phased Array technology. This approach is analogous to a flashlight: the system focuses a beam of sound along a predetermined line of sight (a scan line) and listens for the echo.

This methodology relies on a critical, often flawed assumption: that the speed of sound in the human body is constant (typically assumed to be 1,540 meters per second). In reality, the body is acoustically heterogeneous. Sound travels at approximately 1,450 m/s in fat, 1,580 m/s in muscle, and over 3,000 m/s in bone. When a focused beam from a traditional Philips or GE probe encounters these layers, the speed changes cause the beam to refract, much like light bending through a glass of water. This refraction defocuses the beam, blurring the image. Worse, when the beam hits a high-impedance interface like the skull or a rib, the energy is scattered entirely, creating a “shadow” that hides everything behind it. This physics-based limitation is why a $100,000 cart-based ultrasound machine from a top-tier competitor still cannot see a brain bleed through the skull.

The CET Advantage: Computational Physics

Maui Imaging’s Computed Echo Tomography (CET), the subject of the patent, abandons the “flashlight” analogy in favor of a “radar” or “holographic” approach. Instead of sending focused beams, the system transmits unfocused “pings” that flood the entire volume with sound energy. It then captures the returning echoes on all elements of the transducer array simultaneously.

The superiority lies in the receive-side beamforming algorithms. Rather than assuming a constant speed of sound, the CET system uses massive computational power to analyze the time-of-flight of every echo reaching every element. It solves for the actual speed of sound in the tissue layers, creating a velocity map of the patient’s specific anatomy. It then mathematically corrects the data, realigning the scattered signals to reconstruct a coherent image. This allows the system to effectively “cancel out” the distorting effects of bone, enabling visualization of the brain, the mediastinum, and other previously inaccessible regions. This is not an incremental improvement in image processing; it is a fundamental change in the physics of image formation.

Comprehensive Competitive Benchmarking

The competitive landscape for diagnostic imaging is bifurcated into “Portable but Limited” (Ultrasound) and “Detailed but Fixed” (CT/MRI). Patent 12,514,551 positions Maui Imaging to occupy a blue-ocean “Third Modality” that combines the strengths of both categories while eliminating their primary weaknesses.

Benchmark vs. Traditional Ultrasound (Philips, GE, Siemens)

The primary competitors in the ultrasound space offer systems ranging from handheld point-of-care (POCUS) devices to premium cart-based units.

• Bone Penetration: A Philips Lumify or GE Vscan cannot image through the skull or ribs. If a patient has a head injury, these devices are diagnostic dead ends. Maui Imaging’s CET can image through the squamosal bone of the skull, providing critical data on intracranial hemorrhage.
• Operator Dependence: Traditional ultrasound requires a highly skilled sonographer to manipulate the probe to find “windows” between ribs. This introduces variability and error. CET’s ability to image through barriers significantly reduces the need for precise probe placement, lowering the skill threshold for effective use.
• Resolution at Depth: Conventional systems lose resolution as the beam penetrates deeper. CET, by dynamically focusing every pixel in the image during reconstruction, maintains high resolution throughout the entire field of view.

Benchmark vs. Cross-Modality Competitors (CT and MRI)

The current gold standard for trauma imaging is the Computed Tomography (CT) scan.

• Portability & Access: A CT scanner is a massive, fixed installation requiring three-phase power and shielding. It is impossible to deploy to a battlefield or a rural village. CET offers similar diagnostic utility for trauma (identifying bleeds and fractures) in a portable form factor.
• Safety: A single head CT exposes a patient to ionizing radiation equivalent to hundreds of chest X-rays. CET uses sound waves, which are non-ionizing and safe for repeated monitoring, pediatric patients, and pregnant women.
• Cost: The acquisition and operational cost of a CT suite is orders of magnitude higher than a CET system, making CET a far more viable solution for global health initiatives.

Real-World Impact and Future Potential

Current Impact: Revolutionizing Military and Trauma Medicine

The immediate, real-world application of Patent 12,514,551 is in the sector of combat casualty care and trauma medicine. The “Golden Hour”—the critical window following a traumatic injury—dictates that rapid diagnosis is the strongest predictor of survival. In civilian centers, this is managed via CT scans. However, in military environments, such as Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) or naval vessels, CT scanners are logistically impossible to deploy.

Recognizing this capability gap, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded Maui Imaging a $4 million contract to develop and validate the technology for field use. The patent enables the K3900 system to perform “head-to-toe” assessments. Specifically, the ability to image through the skull allows corpsmen to diagnose Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and intracranial hemorrhage at the point of injury. This capability allows for immediate triage decisions—determining which soldiers require urgent evacuation for neurosurgery and which can be monitored in place. This effectively brings the diagnostic power of a Level 1 Trauma Center to the battlefield, a capability that currently does not exist in any other portable modality.

Future Potential: Global Health and Infectious Disease

Beyond trauma, the technology holds transformative potential for global public health, particularly in the eradication of Tuberculosis (TB). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a grant to Maui Imaging to assess CET for this specific purpose. TB remains a leading cause of death globally, yet diagnosis in resource-limited settings is hampered by the need for chest X-rays (which require power and radiation shielding) or sputum tests (which are slow).

Traditional ultrasound cannot image the lungs effectively because air scatters the beam. However, the CET technology described in the patent, with its ability to manage high-impedance interfaces and correct for scattering, offers a potential breakthrough. By enabling “looking through” the ribs and managing the air interface, CET could allow for rapid, radiation-free screening of lung consolidations in remote villages. A battery-powered, backpack-sized device could be carried by health workers to screen entire populations, identifying active cases early and breaking the chain of transmission. This application represents a shift from “diagnosing the individual” to “diagnosing the population,” leveraging the portability and safety of the technology to solve epidemiological challenges.

R&D Tax Credit Eligibility and Claim Strategy

The development of the technology underpinning Patent 12,514,551 involved significant technical risk, experimentation, and investment. Consequently, it represents a prime candidate for the Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 41. Swanson Reed, a specialized R&D tax advisory firm, provides the expertise necessary to substantiate and maximize such complex claims.

Detailed Eligibility Analysis: The IRS Four-Part Test

For any project to qualify for the federal R&D tax credit, it must satisfy a rigorous four-part test. The development history of Maui Imaging’s CET technology serves as a textbook example of eligibility.

Part 1: Permitted Purpose

The activity must relate to a new or improved business component—product, process, software, or technique—with the aim of improving functionality, performance, reliability, or quality.

• Application: The express purpose of the research was to develop the K3900 Ultrasound System (a new product) and the associated image reconstruction algorithms (new software). The goal was unequivocally to improve performance (resolution, depth of penetration) and quality (elimination of artifacts), as evidenced by the patent title itself: “Systems and methods for improving ultrasound image quality”.

Part 2: Technological in Nature

The research must fundamentally rely on the principles of the hard sciences—physical or biological sciences, engineering, or computer science.

• Application: The development of CET is rooted in Acoustics (Physics), requiring the modeling of wave propagation through heterogeneous media. It involves Electrical Engineering for the design of the transducer arrays and Computer Science for the creation of the massive parallel processing algorithms needed for real-time image reconstruction. This satisfies the requirement for “hard science” reliance, distinguishing it from soft research like market analysis.

Part 3: Elimination of Uncertainty

At the outset of the project, there must be uncertainty regarding the capability to develop the business component, the method of development, or the appropriate design.

• Application: When the inventors began, it was technically uncertain whether receive-side beamforming could sufficiently correct for the extreme phase aberrations caused by the human skull. The industry consensus was that the impedance mismatch was too great. The team faced “Technical Uncertainty” regarding whether the physics could be solved computationally and whether the necessary processing power could be miniaturized into a portable unit.

Part 4: Process of Experimentation

Substantially all of the activities must constitute a process of experimentation—evaluating alternatives, testing hypotheses, and refining designs through trial and error.

• Application: The patent documents and clinical trial records (e.g., scanning 6 volunteers across 65 views, comparing results to ground truth) demonstrate a systematic process. The team likely simulated various “ping” sequences, tested different transducer materials, and iterated on the software code to optimize the speed-of-sound correction algorithms. This iterative cycle of “Design, Test, Analyze, Refine” is the hallmark of qualified research.

The Role of Swanson Reed in Maximizing the Claim

Claiming R&D credits for high-tech, dual-use technologies (commercial and military) requires specialized expertise to navigate the complex regulatory landscape. Swanson Reed offers specific methodologies to ensure compliance and maximization.

AI-Driven Documentation with TaxTrex

Documentation is the primary failure point in R&D audits. Swanson Reed utilizes TaxTrex, a proprietary AI-driven platform, to automate the substantiation process.

• Mechanism: TaxTrex integrates with the company’s project management and financial systems to identify and “tag” Qualified Research Expenses (QREs) in real-time. For Maui Imaging, this would involve tracking the hours of algorithm engineers, the cost of prototype transducers, and the expenses related to clinical trials.
• Benefit: The AI ensures that no eligible expense is overlooked, while simultaneously creating a robust audit trail that links specific expenses to the specific “uncertainties” they were intended to resolve.

The “6-Eye Review” Protocol

Given the high value of the potential claim and the complexities introduced by the DoD contract (see below), audit risk is a material concern. Swanson Reed mitigates this through a mandatory “6-Eye Review” process.

• Mechanism: Every claim is reviewed by three distinct experts: a Qualified Engineer to verify the technical eligibility (the science), a Tax Attorney to verify legal compliance (the law), and a CPA to verify the financial calculation (the numbers).
• Application: In this case, the Tax Attorney would be critical in analyzing the “Funded Research” exclusion. The IRS prohibits claiming credits for research funded by a third party if the taxpayer does not retain substantial rights or if the payment is not contingent on success. The attorney would review the specific terms of the $4M DoD contract to carve out which portions are “at risk” and eligible, and which are “funded” and ineligible, preventing a potentially catastrophic audit adjustment.

Leveraging State-Level Incentives

The “Arizona Patent of the Month” award highlights the company’s nexus with Arizona. Arizona offers a lucrative state R&D tax credit that functions in addition to the federal credit. Swanson Reed specializes in optimizing this interplay, ensuring that activities performed within the state (e.g., at the University of Arizona or local labs) are properly segregated to maximize the state-level return, which can be carried forward for 15 years—a vital liquidity tool for pre-revenue deep-tech firms.

Detailed Physics of the Innovation: From Analog to Digital

The Limitations of Fixed Transmit Focusing

To fully appreciate the magnitude of the leap represented by Patent 12,514,551, it is necessary to examine the foundational physics of the incumbent technology: Phased Array Ultrasound. This technology, which has dominated the market since the 1970s, operates on a principle of “transmit focusing.” The system fires a group of elements with minute time delays, causing the sound waves to interfere constructively at a specific point in space (the focal zone). This creates a narrow beam, much like a focused flashlight.

The system then listens for echoes along this single line of sight (a scan line). It builds the image line by line, from left to right. This method has two fatal flaws:

1. Fixed Focus: The beam is only truly sharp at the specific depth where it was focused. Structures significantly shallower or deeper than the focal zone are inherently blurry.
2. Assumption of Homogeneity: The system calculates the depth of a reflector based on the time of flight, assuming a constant speed of sound. However, if the beam passes through a layer of fat, the sound slows down. The system, unaware of this deceleration, assumes the echo came from a deeper location than it actually did. This geometric distortion is called phase aberration.

When the beam encounters a complex aberrator like the skull, the variation in speed is extreme. The carefully timed wavefront is scrambled. The constructive interference pattern is destroyed, and the “focused beam” becomes a diffuse cloud of energy. The returning echoes are similarly scrambled. The conventional beamformer, which expects coherent signals, sees this as noise and discards it. The result is an acoustic shadow—a black void on the screen where the brain should be.

The Computational Renaissance: Synthetic Aperture and Full Matrix Capture

The innovation in Patent 12,514,551 is to abandon the attempt to focus the sound physically on the transmit side. Instead, the system uses Ping-Based Imaging, a variation of a technique known in industrial non-destructive testing as Full Matrix Capture (FMC).

In this paradigm, the system fires a divergent wave—a “ping”—that ensonifies the entire volume of interest simultaneously. It does not try to focus the energy; it simply illuminates the room. The key is in the reception. Every single element of the transducer array records the raw radio-frequency (RF) data of the returning echoes for the entire duration of the ping. This creates a massive dataset—a matrix of every transmit-receive combination.

Once this data is captured, the system performs Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT). Because the system has the raw data from every element, it can mathematically simulate what the signal would have looked like if it had been focused at any point in the image. In effect, the computer can “retrospectively focus” at every single pixel in the image, simultaneously. This yields an image that is perfectly in focus from the skin line to the deepest structure, eliminating the “focal zone” compromise of traditional ultrasound.

The “Killer App”: Adaptive Speed-of-Sound Correction

The most critical innovation described in the patent—and the reason it can image through bone—is the adaptive speed-of-sound correction. The system does not assume a constant speed of 1,540 m/s. Instead, it treats the speed of sound as a variable to be solved.

The algorithm analyzes the coherence of the signals from different elements. If the speed of sound assumption is wrong, the signals from adjacent elements will not line up perfectly—they will be out of phase. The system iteratively adjusts the speed-of-sound map for the tissue path until the signals align constructively. It effectively calculates the thickness and density of the skull and “subtracts” its optical distortion from the data. This allows the reconstruction of the soft tissue structures (the brain) lying behind the bone.

This process is computationally expensive, requiring teraflops of processing power. It is only the recent convergence of advanced GPU technology and efficient algorithmic design (the core of the patent) that has made this possible in a portable device. This transition from “analog beamforming” to “digital reconstruction” is analogous to the shift from optical photography to computational photography in modern smartphones, where software corrects for the limitations of the physical lens.

Comprehensive Market Analysis and Strategic Implications

The Ultrasound Market Landscape

The global diagnostic ultrasound market is valued at approximately $8 billion annually, growing at a CAGR of roughly 6%. However, this market is heavily stratified.

• High-End Cart Systems ($100k – $250k): Dominated by GE (Logiq/Vivid series), Philips (EPIQ), and Siemens (Acuson). These offer the best image quality but are tethered to hospitals.
• Mid-Range Point-of-Care ($30k – $60k): Systems like the Fujifilm Sonosite are ruggedized for the ER but lack advanced cardiac or neurological capabilities.
• Handhelds ($2k – $8k): Devices like the Butterfly iQ and GE Vscan Air have democratized access but suffer from poor penetration and resolution limitations due to power and thermal constraints.

Maui Imaging’s Strategic Positioning:

Patent 12,514,551 allows Maui Imaging to disrupt this stratification. The K3900 system targets a “Blue Ocean” segment: High-Performance Portable. It offers the diagnostic confidence of a CT scan (due to bone penetration) in a form factor closer to a mid-range laptop ultrasound. This positions it to capture value not just from the ultrasound market, but from the adjacent CT market.

Displacing CT Utilization

A significant portion of CT scans are performed for “rule-out” diagnoses—checking for a brain bleed or a cervical spine fracture in a trauma patient. Many of these scans turn out to be negative.

• Economic Inefficiency: A negative head CT costs the healthcare system between $500 and $3,000 (billed charges) and occupies a valuable machine slot.
• Operational Bottleneck: In a busy ER, the wait for a CT scan can be hours.
• The Maui Proposition: If a CET scan (costing perhaps $50-$100 in marginal utility) can reliably rule out a bleed at the bedside, the hospital saves the cost of the CT and clears the queue for patients who actually need intervention. This “triage utility” is the primary commercial driver for hospital adoption.

The Global Health Multiplier

In the developing world, the lack of medical imaging is a primary driver of mortality. Two-thirds of the world’s population has no access to basic diagnostic imaging.

• Infrastructure Gap: You cannot put a CT scanner in a clinic with unreliable electricity and no air conditioning.
• The CET Solution: The Maui system, being digital and solid-state, is inherently more robust. Its ability to diagnose TB, pneumonia, and trauma without ionizing radiation or consumables (like X-ray film) makes it a uniquely scalable solution for global health. The Gates Foundation grant serves as a validation of this “infrastructure-light” high-tech approach.

Deep Dive: Clinical Applications and Anatomical Targets

Neuro-Critical Care: The Holy Grail

The skull has always been the “Iron Curtain” of ultrasound. The only existing window is the temporal bone, which is thin enough in some people to allow a “Trans-Cranial Doppler” (TCD) exam. However, TCD is blind—it only shows blood flow waveforms, not anatomy.

• The CET Breakthrough: Patent 12,514,551 enables true B-mode (anatomical) imaging through the skull. Clinicians can visualize the midline shift of the brain (a key sign of expanding pressure), the size of the ventricles (hydrocephalus), and the presence of hematomas (bleeds).
• Use Case: In a stroke unit, a patient’s status often changes rapidly. Instead of transporting an unstable patient to CT every 4 hours, a nurse could perform a CET scan at the bedside to monitor the size of the bleed in real-time.

Thoracic Imaging: Beyond the Pleura

Lung ultrasound is currently limited to visualizing the “pleural line” and artifacts (like B-lines) that indicate fluid. It cannot see deep into the lung tissue because the air reflects the sound.

• The CET Breakthrough: While sound still cannot travel through air, CET’s multi-angle “ping” approach allows it to see around air pockets and ribs to visualize consolidations (pneumonia/TB) that are currently invisible to standard ultrasound. It provides a “tomographic” view of the lung periphery, offering a radiation-free alternative to Chest CT for tracking pneumonia progression (e.g., in COVID-19 or flu patients).

Orthopedics: Seeing the Fracture

Diagnosing long bone fractures (femur, humerus) in the field currently relies on physical exam (“does it crunch?”).

• The CET Breakthrough: The patent describes the ability to image the cortical surface of the bone with high precision. Because it reconstructs the image from multiple angles (synthetic aperture), it can visualize the disruption in the bone cortex (the fracture line) even if it is non-displaced. This allows for accurate field splinting and surgical planning before the patient even reaches the hospital.

Final Thoughts: The Dawn of Ubiquitous Tomography

The awarding of the Arizona Patent of the Month to US Patent 12,514,551 is a recognition of a rare achievement: the successful renegotiation of the laws of physics through computational brute force. By transforming the acoustic barrier of the human skull from a wall into a solvable variable, Maui Imaging has created a technology with the potential to reshape the standard of care in medicine.

This innovation arrives at a critical convergence of needs. The military demands a way to diagnose brain injury in the field; the global health community demands a way to screen for TB without infrastructure; and the healthcare system demands a way to lower costs by reducing reliance on expensive CT scans. The technology described in this patent answers all three.

For the company, the path forward is paved with both opportunity and complexity. The commercialization phase—navigating FDA clearance, securing reimbursement codes, and managing the dual-use nature of the technology—will require the same level of rigorous execution as the engineering phase. The strategic use of the R&D Tax Credit, guided by the specialized expertise of firms like Swanson Reed, will provide the non-dilutive capital essential for sustaining this journey. Ultimately, Patent 12,514,551 stands as a testament to the power of “hard tech”—innovation that does not just improve a workflow, but fundamentally expands the horizons of human capability.

Appendix: Detailed Analysis of Citations and Research Material

Primary Sources

The analysis in this report is grounded in the following primary documents:

• Validating the patent details, the award context, and the inventors.
• Providing the technical specifications of the CET system, the clinical trial data (65 views, 6 volunteers), and the comparative physics (scan line vs. ping).
• Confirming the commercial traction with the DoD ($4M contract) and the Gates Foundation (TB grant).
• Outlining the tax credit eligibility criteria and the specific methodologies of Swanson Reed.

Note on “Stealth Mode”

The research snippets indicate that Maui Imaging operated in “stealth mode” for a significant period. This is a common strategy in deep-tech hardware companies to protect IP before the patent moat is fully established. The issuance of Patent 12,514,551 and the subsequent public announcements of the DoD and Gates contracts signal the company’s transition from an R&D lab to a commercial entity, a phase that typically triggers a substantial increase in “Process of Experimentation” expenses eligible for the tax credit.

Statistical Context of the Award

The mention of the award being chosen out of “1000 potential patents” places the achievement in statistical context. It implies that the patent scored in the top 0.1% of reviewed IP assets in the region, a metric that investors often use as a proxy for technical due diligence. This external validation by an objective AI model serves as a powerful de-risking signal for potential acquirers or partners.