Company Awarded To: Ocuvera LLC
Patent: Privacy preservation system
For the month of June 2026, the medical technology and artificial intelligence fields have achieved a major milestone with the official recognition of U.S. Patent No. 12,620,108 for a “Privacy preservation system.” Assigned to the Lincoln-based healthcare innovator Ocuvera LLC, this groundbreaking invention introduces an automated method for analyzing patient movement and predicting risky behaviors such as unassisted bed exits. By leveraging complex machine learning without compromising patient dignity, this technology resolves one of the greatest challenges in modern healthcare: maximizing inpatient safety while fully protecting personal privacy.
Why the Invention Is So Innovative
Traditional patient monitoring in hospital environments historically relies on continuous in-person sitters or live-stream central video monitoring. These legacy options are not only incredibly costly and labor-intensive, but they also expose hospital staff to attention fatigue, which frequently leads to delayed response times. More importantly, streaming standard high-definition video feeds inside intimate patient rooms severely compromises patient privacy and personal dignity. Ocuvera LLC has disrupted this paradigm by pioneering a fully automated monitoring system that relies on privacy-preserving depth data to predict movements before an actual fall happens.
The core innovation behind the patent involves training an advanced neural network by cross-referencing standard Red-Green-Blue (RGB) or infrared (IR) image data with annotated depth image data. By teaching the system to recognize early structural indicators of a bed exit from de-identified depth data, the software can accurately calculate when a patient is preparing to leave their support surface. This eliminates the need for human eyes to actively watch live video feeds. The automated system generates highly precise, predictive alerts sent directly to smartphones carried by nurses on the floor, providing a vital lead time to intervene before an adverse event takes place, all while displaying only non-identifiable contours of the individual.
Recognized as the June 2026 Nebraska Patent of the Month
Headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, Ocuvera LLC has been awarded the prestigious Patent of the Month distinction for June 2026 within the state’s healthcare software and biotechnology division. The selection committee highlighted the immense social and economic value of Ocuvera’s technology, particularly its profound implications for medical centers facing acute nursing shortages. Inpatient falls represent a multi-billion dollar financial drain and a leading cause of preventable injuries in American hospitals today.
By creating an automated system that functions perfectly across diverse hospital layouts, this Nebraska innovator provides an invaluable tool for Critical Access Hospitals, which serve vast rural communities across the state. This award underscores Nebraska’s expanding prominence as a premier Midwestern center for high-tech medical research, proving that localized software companies can successfully address nationwide institutional healthcare vulnerabilities.
U.S. R&D Tax Credit Eligibility and Practical Applications
The practical applications of this proprietary privacy-preservation platform create outstanding opportunities for digital health, software engineering, and artificial intelligence firms to qualify for the federal Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit in the United States. Under Section 41 of the Internal Revenue Code, companies can claim significant qualified research expenses (QREs) by thoroughly documenting their systematic iterative experimentation. For instance, engineering teams tasking themselves with designing and optimizing neural networks to interpret multi-modal data streams face significant technical uncertainty regarding processing latency and prediction accuracy. Developing customized computer vision algorithms that function seamlessly across varying ambient lighting conditions, such as near-total darkness using infrared sensors, demands rigorous prototyping and validation. Furthermore, the technical process of establishing secure, low-latency communication links between hardware sensors and mobile notification platforms requires advanced software engineering. By systematically tracking internal software developer wages, testing contractor fees, and specialized cloud processing costs allocated to these design and validation workflows, healthcare technology companies can secure valuable tax credits to fund future medical innovations.
