Biophan Technologies, Inc., within a span of two months, obtained two U.S. patents on methods to signal the heart. These patents, U.S. Patent No. 7,020,517 (entitled “Fibrillation/tachycardia monitoring and preventive system and methodology,” issued on March 28th) and U.S. Patent No. 7,054,686 (entitled “Pulsewidth electrical stimulation”, issued on May 30th), disclose several devices and methods for maintaining steady heart activity. U.S. Patent 7,020,517 claims a cardiac assist device that comprises a housing (with its own control circuits “to control generation of various electrical stimuli in response to sense conditions of the heart”), a heart sensor, and a lead system “to transmit and receive signals between the heart and said primary housing.” The claim further describes the housing as comprising “a chaos control generator to generate a pre-fibrillation state electrical signal,” along with “a pacing environment enhancement generator to generate an electrical enhancement signal” which effectively lowers “a threshold for pacing the heart when said control circuit determines from the sensed conditions that a natural pacing signal of the heart has fallen below a threshold to trigger the heart to beat.” According to the patent, this invention addresses the need for “a device that can sense or detect an approaching fibrillation or tachycardia cardiac state and take remedial actions prior to the heart entering a dangerous state.” U.S. Patent No. 7,054,686, which references 280 separate U.S. patents and pending U.S. patent applications, discloses “a process for stimulating tissue,” which can include cardiac, nerve, and/or brain tissue, comprising the delivery of an electrical stimulus to the tissue using “about 10 to about 1,000 individual pulses” of varying lengths (1 to 100 microseconds), and two different voltages from “about 10 millivolts to about 100 volts being different from the second voltage.” According to the patent, one object of the invention was “to provide a cardiac assist process which takes advantage of the speed of cellular response to external stimuli, and which is substantially more energy efficient than prior art cardiac assist processes.” According to Biophan’s website, Biophan and its licensors hold over 200 U.S. and foreign patents, patent licenses, or patent applications.

U.S. Patent No. 7,020,517: LINK
U.S. Patent No. 7,054,686: LINK
Yahoo! News Article: LINK
Biophan Technologies, Inc. Website: LINK