U.S. Patent 7683954 was awarded to Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. on 2010-03-23 and describes a “Solid-state image sensor.” This patent has been cited 336 times by other U.S. patents which places it in the top 500 cited patents since 2010 according to our law firm research, and makes it of the most innovative measurement patents in the field of instruments. The abstract states:

A solid-state image sensor of a charge sorting method used in a time-of-flight measurement method, in which noise derived from background light, which is caused by the reflection light from the subject derived from background light is eliminated, reflection light from the subject derived from a predetermined light source, which is previously set in the solid-state image sensor, is effectively extracted as a signal component to achieve high sensitivity and low noise, which is a solid-state image sensor that is equipped with a plurality of charge-storage sections, discriminates photoelectrons generated by incoming light on the incoming timing and sort to the above-described plurality of charge-storage sections, and measures the timing of the incoming light, in which the sensor has: a plurality of capacitors that capable of conducting to the plurality of charge-storage sections; and a control section that controls a conducted state between the above-described plurality of charge-storage sections and the above-described plurality of capacitors, in which by selectively conducting the above-described plurality of charge-storage sections and the above-described plurality of capacitors by the control of the above-described control section, the difference component of charge stored in the above-described plurality of charge-storage sections is extracted. Link: U.S. Patent 7683954

This patent was originally filed on 2007-09-27 which gives it a processing time of 908 days, compared to an average processing time of 1635 in the field. Stanley Electric Co., Ltd. has 1015 total patents. The first named inventor is Michinori Ichikawa of Tokyo, Tokyo. The assistant examiner was Dwight Alex C Tejano.

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