Patent ID: 7485105

Claim:
A system for regulating an internal programmable valve implanted in a medical patient comprising: a subcutaneous case; a valve in the case with access to an internal fluid; a subcutaneous magnet connected to the valve; a transcutaneous magnet; a magnetic flux coupling between the subcutaneous magnet and the transcutaneous magnet; an encoder disk within the case connected to the valve; a near infrared optical source producing a near infrared source signal; the near infrared source signal incident on the encoder disk; an optical receiver in communication with the near infrared source signal and generating an angular position signal related to the angular position of the encoder disk; a conversion circuit transforming the angular position signal into an encoded near infrared optical signal; the conversion circuit comprising a reference signal generated by a frequency generator, and a frequency divider in communication with the reference signal and the angular position signal; the near infrared optical source connected to the frequency divider and producing a transmitted near infrared optical signal; the near infrared optical source further comprising a beam splitter in the path of the transmitted near infrared optical signal, the beam splitter being adapted to partition the transmitted near infrared optical signal into the near infrared optical source signal and a transcutaneous near infrared data signal; and an inductive power coupling providing power to the near infrared optical source, the optical receiver and the conversion circuit.