Nanoveu (ASX: NVU) Gains US Patent Protection for ECS-DoT AI Technology

Nanoveu said a United States patent has been granted for circuitry used in artificial intelligence object detection. The technology is exclusively licensed to EMASS, Nanoveu’s ultra-low-power semiconductor division.

US Patent No. 12,651,452 B2 protects dedicated accelerator circuitry for non-maximum suppression. That process is the final stage of an AI object-detection pipeline.

The patent is assigned to Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, or NTU. EMASS founder Dr Mohamed Sabry co-invented the protected technology while employed at NTU.

Moving a Software Task Into Silicon

Non-maximum suppression removes overlapping detection results, helping a system settle on the most relevant objects. The task is conventionally handled by software.

Nanoveu said software execution can consume a disproportionate share of inference time and energy. Its patented approach instead performs the function using purpose-built silicon.

Peer-reviewed research underlying the patent reported speed improvements of up to 75 times against a software implementation of the same algorithm. It also reported a 13.4-times improvement over the previous state-of-the-art hardware accelerator.

Those comparisons used comparable detection accuracy and full-HD input resolutions, according to Nanoveu. However, the announcement’s disclaimer says described results are modelled outcomes rather than physical test results.

Built Into the Next ECS-DoT Chip

The protected mechanism is incorporated into Nanoveu’s next-generation, Bluetooth-enabled 16-nanometre ECS-DoT chip. That semiconductor entered fabrication at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in January 2026.

The hardware module targets edge AI, where data is processed directly on a device. Low power consumption is especially relevant for always-on, battery-operated products.

Nanoveu identified smart cameras, doorbells, smart glasses, augmented and virtual-reality headsets, drones and automotive sensing as potential applications. EMASS also targets hearables, industrial internet-connected devices, robotics and autonomous systems with its system-on-chip architecture.

The patent therefore protects a specific component of ECS-DoT’s object-detection process. It does not cover the chip’s entire range of vision, audio and sensor-processing functions.

Ownership and Commercial Position

NTU retains ownership of the patent, while EMASS holds the exclusive licence. This distinction defines Nanoveu’s access to the intellectual property without transferring the underlying patent ownership.

The exclusive arrangement prevents the protected mechanism from being broadly licensed by NTU to competing users. Nanoveu did not disclose the licence’s financial terms or announce related customer contracts or revenue.

Patent protection is relevant because ECS-DoT is still progressing through semiconductor fabrication. The grant establishes legal protection in the United States for one hardware feature before the next-generation chip reaches later production stages.

Broader Filing Program

Nanoveu plans further filings across voice, motion and sensor-fusion workloads. It has also previously flagged patent families covering drone energy optimisation and flight-control technology.

The strategy reflects ECS-DoT’s wider role across multiple edge-computing workloads. Future filings would target additional parts of that architecture, while the newly granted patent is confined to object detection.