The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a granted patent for Samsung earlier this month for Augmented Reality contact lenses. To get around Google's awkward Glass product that was receiving constant negative news mainly due to its face camera being seen as an invasion of privacy, Samsung invented specialized contact lenses with a hidden camera built--in. The main selling point of Samsung's contact lenses is that they're primarily designed for realizing augmented reality.

Samsung's invention covers smart contact lenses capable of clearly providing information regardless of movement of a wearer and a focal length and increasing the angle of view.

The peripheral device may include an antenna through which information may be transmitted to or from an external device, a capacitor configured to supply power to the display unit and a portion of the peripheral device, a control unit configured to control operations of the display unit and the peripheral device, a motion sensor configured to detect movement of the smart contact lens, and a thin-film camera.

The transparent substrate layer may include a microlens array including a plurality of microlenses, and the microlens array may have a varying microlens distribution density.

According to another example embodiment, a method of operating a smart contact lens includes receiving information, transmitting the information to a display unit, and projecting light directly onto a retina using the display unit, the light including the information.

The receiving receives the information from an external device. The external device may include a program interacting with the smart contact lens.

In the smart contact lens, the display unit may be disposed on the surface of the contact lens or in the contact lens, and a display region may be adjusted. Therefore, the field of view of the smart contact lens may be much larger than that of projection-type smart glasses like Google Glass that have been introduced. As a result, the smart contact lens may be more useful for realizing augmented reality.

In patent FIG. 27 below, Samsung notes that after the passivation layer is formed, an encapsulation layer is formed on the upper surface of the contact lens to cover the passivation layer. The encapsulation layer may entirely cover the passivation layer and the upper surface of the contact lens. The encapsulation layer may be formed of the same material as that used to form the contact lens, such as a hydrogel.

Samsung's patent FIG. 9 above is a plan view illustrating a structure of a peripheral device disposed on an upper surface of a contact lens of a smart contact lens; FIGS. 14 is a bottom view illustrating the distribution density of the microlenses of the transparent substrate layer.

Samsung was granted this patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month and originally for in March 2015.