TW202411737A - Contact lens - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a contact lens (112), and in particular to a contact lens for improving a user’s vision, for example the user’s near vision as required for reading and/or for distance vision. The contact lens has a substantially opaque region (114) surrounding an aperture (116). Substantially all of the incident light passes through the aperture to the user’s retina; substantially none of the incident light passes through the opaque region. It is arranged that the aperture is smaller than the user’s pupil whereby to create a pin hole effect.

Description

Contact Lenses

The present invention relates to a contact lens, and in particular to a contact lens for further improving the user's near vision and/or distance vision.

The human eye has a lens that focuses light from objects being viewed onto the retina. The lens is slightly flexible and its curvature can be changed as needed to enable viewing of distant objects or nearby objects. However, many people have imperfect vision and need assistance to see distant objects clearly or to see nearby objects clearly (or in some cases both). An optometrist can measure the extent and type of imperfection in a person's eye and provide physical lenses to correct or at least reduce the effects of the imperfection. Physical lenses are usually provided as part of a pair of glasses or as contact lenses.

Many people's near vision deteriorates as they age, as it is often more difficult to clearly see nearby objects, such as text in a book. Therefore, reading glasses that can improve the user's near vision are widely used.

The human eye has an iris that forms an opening (the pupil) through which light can enter the eye. A healthy iris can dilate in low-light conditions and contract in bright light to adjust the amount of light reaching the retina.

Cameras also use a lens (or in most cases, multiple lenses) to focus light from an object onto film or a charge-coupled device (CCD). Most cameras also have an adjustable aperture to control the amount of light that reaches the film or CCD.

It will be understood that the term "contact lens" describes a component that, in use, directly contacts the user's eye and through which light can pass to the user's pupil and retina. Some contact lenses are clear, allowing nearly 100% of incident light to pass through. Other contact lenses are tinted, allowing a slightly reduced portion of incident light to pass through. Some contact lenses are tinted, specifically to reduce or avoid color blindness in the user. Other contact lenses are colored and/or patterned to change the appearance of the user's eye.

Most contact lenses can focus light from an object to a point. However, partial contact lenses do not focus light, for example, the only function of partial contact lenses is to change the appearance of the user's eyes. For ease of understanding, the term "contact lenses" in this specification will include contact lenses that are used to focus light and contact lenses that are not used to focus light. In order to distinguish these different types of contact lenses in this specification, contact lenses that are used to focus light will be referred to as focusing contact lenses, and contact lenses that are not used to focus light will be referred to as plano contact lenses. The term focusing contact lenses will include contact lenses that converge light to a point or diverge from a point, and both types of lenses are used to correct defective vision. Unless the context requires otherwise, the more general term "contact lenses" will be used for both focusing and planoscopic contact lenses.

It will be appreciated that light from an object travels in waves. The focusing contact lens bends the wavefront so that it can be focused at a desired point. Multiple waves pass through the focusing contact lens from each point of the object to create an image on the retina. In order to create a clear or sharp image, different waves from the same point on the object (which pass through different parts of the focusing contact lens) must reach the same point on the retina. If the focusing contact lens is defective or not suitable for the user, light from the same point on the object (which passes through different parts of the focusing contact lens) will not reach the same point on the retina and the image will be blurred.

A pinhole camera is a device that creates a sharp image without the need for a lens. The camera has a substantially light-proof surface with a very small hole through which light can pass to the film or screen. The device works by limiting the hole through which light can pass, thereby reducing the range of different paths that light can take to reach the film or screen from every point on the object. Reducing the range of different paths that light can take has the effect of reducing blur, thereby creating a sharper image.

As is known, the principle of a pinhole camera (or pinhole effect) is also used in spectacles, whereby the spectacles lenses are usually opaque and have a small hole through which the light can pass to the user's eye. Thus, the user's iris can be effectively bypassed, wherein the size of the light-transmitting hole through which the light can reach the retina is determined by the small hole and not by the user's iris. The focusing effect of the eye lens is thus limited and blurring caused by defects in the focusing effect is reduced.

According to the present invention, a contact lens is provided, which has a substantially light-proof area surrounding a light-transmitting hole.

When in use, it is desirable to place the light-transmitting hole above the user's pupil, and at least a portion of the user's pupil will be blocked by the opaque area. Therefore, the opaque area limits the area of the user's retina that light can reach, thereby reproducing the pinhole effect to enhance the user's vision.

It will be understood that the description of "light-opaque" in this specification will include almost light-opaque, that is, 0% of the incident light does not have to pass through the light-opaque area of the contact lens. In order for the pinhole effect to work effectively, almost no light must pass through the light-opaque area and almost all light that reaches the user's retina must pass through the light-transmitting hole. However, materials that allow a small portion of the incident light to pass through the user's retina can be effective and therefore fall within the term "light-opaque".

It is desirable that the size of the light transmission hole range from about 1 mm to about 3 mm. Ideally, the smallest size of the light transmission hole is exactly 1 mm. And, ideally, the largest size of the light transmission hole is exactly 3 mm. It is understood that a light transmission hole having a size less than about 1 mm will significantly reduce the amount of light transmitted to the retina. In many cases, the increased vision resulting from such a small light transmission hole is expected to more than offset the reduced clarity caused by the reduced amount of light transmitted. Therefore, a light transmission hole size of about 1 mm is believed to be the minimum size of a practical contact lens for most people.

It is also understood that the iris of some people can shrink to a diameter of about 3 mm. Therefore, providing a maximum size of the light-transmitting aperture greater than 3 mm may not be limited to the user's iris and has little benefit in practice. Therefore, a size of about 3 mm is considered to be the maximum size of a practical contact lens for most people.

Contact lenses according to the present invention may be provided with aperture sizes of 1.0 mm, or 1.5 mm, or 2.0 mm, or 2.5 mm, or 3.0 mm (all approximate). If desired, contact lenses with apertures of intermediate sizes (e.g., 2.3 mm) may be provided, but it is expected that most users will not be able to discern the degree of visual enhancement provided by smaller differences in aperture size (e.g., between an aperture size of 2.3 mm and an aperture size of 2.5 mm).

The contact lenses may be focusing contact lenses. When using such contact lenses, the user's vision is first enhanced by the focusing effect of the contact lenses and then by the pinhole effect of the aperture. Focusing contact lenses may have a specific focusing power suitable for a specific individual's eye, or the focusing lenses may have a standard focusing power suitable for many people's eyes. The latter may be suitable for reading if desired, for example having a focusing power of +1 diopter.

The opaque area may occupy the entire contact lens outside the light-transmitting hole, that is, the opaque area may extend to the outer edge of the contact lens. Alternatively, the contact lens may have a light-transmitting area outside all or part of the opaque area. For example, the opaque area may be a ring around the light-transmitting hole, which is itself surrounded by the light-transmitting area. If the opaque area covers the outside of the user's pupil, no light will pass through the surrounding light-transmitting area and reach the user's retina.

Contact lenses with light-transmitting apertures can be polarized and/or tinted/colored to further reduce the amount of light entering the eye. Such contact lenses can be suitable for use in bright environments (e.g., to replace or supplement sunglasses), or for users who are color blind and are assisted by viewing objects through special filters. The opaque areas can be polarized and/or tinted similar to the light-transmitting apertures. The light-transmitting apertures (and the desired opaque areas) can be made photochromic and become more colorful in brighter environments.

The aperture may be circular, in which case the description of the aperture's "size" will be equivalent to the "diameter". Alternatively, the aperture may be non-circular, such as elliptical, or polygonal, such as square, diamond, rectangular, or triangular, for example. In these alternative aperture shapes, the description of "size" will generally be equivalent to the length of the shorter side, or the distance between opposite sides of a particular aperture.

The aperture is preferably transparent. In other words, the aperture is a space in an opaque region, for example, having an opaque region printed or otherwise formed on the surface of the contact lens or in the material of the contact lens, and the aperture is defined by no printing. Providing a transparent aperture in the opaque region allows the material of the contact lens to be continuous, which is expected to be the most comfortable configuration for most users. Alternatively, the aperture can be a solid hole through the material of the contact lens (although some users may find solid holes in contact lenses uncomfortable).

Ideally, part or all of the opaque area may be patterned and/or colored. Since this area of the eyewear is opaque, a selected pattern can be applied without affecting the user's view. For example, the opaque area may carry an image to change the appearance of the user's eyes, which may be a different eye color, or have a pattern, such as a flag, logo, emoticon, or other pattern as desired, which is visible to an observer when the contact lens is worn.

Figure 1 shows an eye 10 and a contact lens 112. Figure 2 shows a front view of the contact lens 112. A small gap is shown between the surface of the eye 10 and the contact lens 112 in Figure 1, but it is only for clarity of illustration, and in practice the contact lens 112 will directly engage the eye 10.

The contact lens 112 is a common contact lens with uniform thickness. In an alternative embodiment, the contact lens 112 is a focusing contact lens, wherein the inner surface and the outer surface (i.e., the curved surfaces facing toward and away from the eye, respectively) of the contact lens 112 are generally not parallel. In addition, it should be understood that in practice the contact lens 112 will gradually become thinner toward its outer edge, so that when the user closes the eye 10, the eyelid will smoothly cover the edge of the contact lens 112.

The contact lens 112 has a substantially light-proof region 114 surrounding a light-transmitting hole 116. A border 118 defines the edge of the light-transmitting hole 116.

The user's pupil 20 is also shown in Figure 1. The diameter of the pupil 20 is P, and it will be understood that the diameter of the pupil will generally vary depending on lighting conditions, with the iris surrounding the pupil 20 expanding or contracting to adjust the amount of light passing through the pupil 20. Diameter P represents the minimum diameter of the user's pupil 20, i.e., the diameter that typically occurs in bright light.

2, the light-transmitting aperture 116 is circular and has a diameter A. The arrangement is such that the diameter A is smaller than the diameter P so that the contact lens 112 artificially limits the area of the pupil 20 (and thereby the lens of the eye (not shown)) through which light can pass to the retina, thereby providing a pinhole effect.

In this embodiment, the opaque area 114 is completely opaque, that is, it allows 0% of light to pass through, but this is not necessary, and opaque areas that allow a small portion of incident light to pass through are still within the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the object can only be properly viewed through the light-transmitting hole 116.

In this embodiment, the light-transmitting aperture 116 also allows 100% (or substantially 100%) of the incident light to pass through the pupil 20, but this is not required, and in other embodiments, the light-transmitting aperture 116 may be polarized and/or colored as described below. The difference in transmission between the light-transmitting aperture 116 and the opaque region 114 is sufficient to ensure that the user's view of the object is effectively and completely defined by the light-transmitting aperture 116, thereby benefiting from the pinhole effect.

It will be appreciated that, like known contact lenses, the contact lens 112 will generally move with the user's eye so that the light-transmitting aperture 116 will remain approximately centered on the pupil 20 as the eye moves within its socket.

In an alternative embodiment where the contact lenses are focusing contact lenses, the focusing contact lenses may be configured, for example, to assist reading, wherein the focusing power of the focusing contact lenses is, for example, +1 diopter. Thus, the user's vision of near objects will first be enhanced through the focusing effect of the contact lenses. Second, the user's vision of near objects will be enhanced through the pinhole effect of the light-transmitting aperture 116. The focusing portion of the contact lenses may be confined within the light-transmitting aperture 116, or may extend part or all of the light-opaque region 114 as desired.

In another alternative embodiment, the focusing contact lens is configured to correct a particular user's visual impairment in one eye (or both eyes if the user requires the same correction in both eyes). For example, the focusing contact lens may be configured to allow a particular (nearsighted) user to see distant objects clearly and therefore be suitable for driving, etc.

The opaque area 114 is printed on at least one of the inner and outer surfaces of the contact lens 112 (i.e., the curved surfaces facing toward and away from the eye 10, respectively), and the light-transmitting holes 116 are gaps or spaces in the printing. In an alternative embodiment, the opaque area is formed by impregnating an opaque material into the material of the contact lens.

It is expected that the entire contact lens has the same focusing power, which is the most cost-effective. However, the present invention is not limited thereto, and according to requirements, the light-transmitting hole can be a focusing lens, and the opaque area can be a plano lens. It is also possible to set a bifocal contact lens with two different focusing powers in the light-transmitting hole.

The opaque area 114 may be colored or tinted (these terms are used interchangeably in this specification and describe uniform tinting throughout the contact lens). Alternatively, the opaque area 114 may be multi-colored and/or patterned, i.e., have a non-uniform arrangement of colors to produce an image visible to an observer. The image may be a picture of an object, such as an emoticon or flag, or may be an abstract image and/or a multi-colored image. The image changes the appearance of the eye 10 as desired.

3 to 8 show different embodiments of contact lenses 212, 312, 412, 512, 612 and 712. These contact lenses are shown larger than the contact lenses of FIG. 2, but this is only for clarity of illustration, and in embodiments the sizes of the contact lenses are (substantially) the same size (and preferably the same size as known contact lenses).

The contact lens 212 has a colored (and, if desired, polarized and/or photochromic) light-transmitting aperture 216. However, the light-transmitting aperture 216 is transparent, thereby being distinguished from the opaque region 214. In an ideal arrangement, the color of the light-transmitting aperture 216 matches the color of the opaque region 214 so that the entire contact lens 212 appears the same color to an observer. Alternatively, the color of the light-transmitting aperture 216 can be different from the color of the opaque region 214.

FIG. 3 shows a boundary 218 between the light-transmitting hole 216 and the light-opaque region 214 , but it may be invisible in practice (other embodiments are similar).

The contact lens 312 of FIG. 4 has a tinted (and, if desired, polarized and/or photochromic) light-transmitting aperture 316. In this contact lens, the opaque region 314 does not extend to the outer edge of the contact lens and comprises a discontinuous ring around the light-transmitting aperture 316. Thus, the opaque region is effectively similar to a thick border around the light-transmitting aperture. A light-transmitting region 322 surrounds the opaque region 314. It should be arranged that when the iris is fully dilated, the outer edge of the opaque region 314 is at least as large as the user's pupil, so that all light transmitted to the retina will pass through the light-transmitting aperture 316 regardless of the light conditions. For example, the diameter of the outer edge separating the opaque region 314 from the light-transmitting region 322 can be 8 mm to 10 mm.

In the embodiments of Figures 1 to 4, the diameter A of the light-transmitting holes 116, 216, 316 is 3.0 mm. In the alternative embodiment of Figure 5, the diameter of the light-transmitting hole 416 is 1.5 mm. Contact lenses can be configured to have other light-transmitting hole diameters, preferably between about 1.0 mm and about 3.0 mm.

The contact lens 512 of Fig. 6 differs from the contact lens of Fig. 1 to Fig. 5 in that it has a square light transmission hole 516. For a square light transmission hole, the term "size" is most appropriately referred to as the length of each side of the square.

The contact lens 612 of FIG. 7 is different from the contact lens of FIG. 1 to FIG. 5 in that it has a triangular light-transmitting hole 616. The triangular light-transmitting hole 616 is an equilateral triangle, but it can also be an isosceles triangle or a scalene triangle. For a triangular light-transmitting hole, the term "size" is most suitable to refer to the length of the shortest side.

The contact lens 712 of Fig. 8 differs from the contact lens of Fig. 1 to Fig. 5 in that it has a rectangular light-transmitting aperture 716, wherein the major axis of the rectangle is horizontal. For a rectangular light-transmitting aperture, the term "size" is most appropriately used to refer to the length of the short side (in this embodiment, the vertical side).

The embodiments of FIG. 6 to FIG. 8 show that the present invention is not limited to the shape of the light-transmitting hole, and light-transmitting holes of shapes other than those shown in the drawings (eg, including ellipse, diamond, pentagon or hexagon) may also be used.

The light-transmitting apertures 416, 516, 616 and 716 are shown without any tinting or color, but the contact lenses can be tinted and/or polarized and/or photochromic as desired, similar to the above. If desired, these contact lenses can also include light-transmitting areas in addition to the opaque areas similar to FIG. 4. In these latter embodiments, the outer edge separating the opaque areas from the light-transmitting areas can be circular, square, triangular or rectangular, respectively, as desired to match the shape of the light-transmitting apertures.

Although borders 118, etc. may not be visible in some practical embodiments, opaque regions 114, etc. are likely to be visible. Specifically, in embodiments having a translucent region outside of the opaque region, the intended observer may see the outer edge that separates the opaque region from the translucent region. Thus, the opaque region may be used to create an image or a portion of an image. For example, the outer edge of the opaque region may be made in the shape of a selected image (e.g., the shape of a country or continent). Thus, the contrast between the opaque region (e.g., 314) and the translucent region (e.g., 322) may be used to create a selected image (or a portion of an image) on the contact lens.

10: Eyes 20: Pupil 112: Contact lenses 114: Opaque area 116: Light-transmitting hole 118: Border 212: Contact lenses 214: Opaque area 216: Light-transmitting hole 218: Border 312: Contact lenses 314: Opaque area 316: Light-transmitting hole 322: Light-transmitting area 412: Contact lenses 416: Light-transmitting hole 512: Contact lenses 516: Light-transmitting hole 612: Contact lenses 616: Light-transmitting hole 712: Contact lenses 716: Light-transmitting hole A: Diameter P: Diameter

The present invention will now be described in more detail by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: FIG. 1 shows a user's eye and a contact lens according to the present invention; FIG. 2 shows a front view of the contact lens of FIG. 1 ; FIG. 3 shows a front view of an alternative design of the contact lens; FIG. 4 shows a front view of another alternative design of the contact lens; FIG. 5 shows a front view of yet another alternative design of the contact lens; FIG. 6 shows a front view of yet another alternative design of the contact lens; FIG. 7 shows a front view of yet another alternative design of the contact lens; and FIG. 8 shows a front view of yet another alternative design of the contact lens.

112: Contact lenses

114: opaque area

116: Light-transmitting hole

118:Boundary

A:Diameter

Claims (16)

A contact lens having a substantially light-proof area surrounding a light-transmitting aperture. A contact lens as described in claim 1, wherein approximately 0% of incident light can pass through the opaque area. A contact lens as described in claim 1 or 2, wherein most of the incident light can pass through the light-transmitting hole. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the size of the light-transmitting hole ranges from about 1.0 mm to about 3.0 mm. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the contact lens is a focusing contact lens. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the contact lens is a plano contact lens. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the opaque area occupies the entire contact lens except the light-transmitting hole. The contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 6 further comprises a light-transmitting area. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein part or all of the opaque area is colored and/or patterned. A contact lens as described in claim 8, wherein part or all of the light-transmitting area is colored and/or patterned. A contact lens as described in claim 8 or 10, wherein the light-transmissive area surrounds the light-opaque area. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein a boundary between the light-transmitting hole and the opaque area is visible. A contact lens as described in claim 12, wherein the boundary forms part of an image. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 13, wherein the light-transmitting hole is colored and/or polarized and/or photochromic. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the light-transmitting hole is circular. A contact lens as described in any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the light-transmitting hole is non-circular, including one of an elliptical, square, diamond, rectangular and triangular shape.