A step forward for Google has been realized as the company has been awarded a patent for its glucose-tracking smart contact lens. Noticed earlier this week by WebProNews, Google originally applied for the patent in September of 2012 and was officially granted it on March 24th of this year.
While this news brings the idea closer to life, it’s still a far way off from becoming a viable product. Back in January, Google announced plans for a smart contact lens that would monitor a user’s glucose levels via the tears in his or her eye.
The Google[x] team created a contact lens material with embedded chips and sensors that takes a glucose reading once per second. At the time, Google said it was testing the lens, had completed multiple clinical research studies, held talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and partnered with pharmaceutical company Novartis through its eye care division, Alcon.
Google declined to comment any further on its plans, noting, “We hold patents on a variety of ideas—some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don’t. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patents.”
[Source] USPTO [/source]
