Patent 7134998 was granted and assigned to Kao Corporation on November, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A tear secretion quantity examination system for evaluating simply and non-invasively the tear secretion quantity has: a moisture evaporation quantity detection unit for detecting the moisture evaporation quantity from a subject's eye with a humidity sensor; and an operation unit for computing evaluation parameters of the tear secretion quantity based on a detection signal of the moisture evaporation quantity detection unit. The operation means approximates an attenuation portion of saw-tooth responses appearing for each blink in a tear evaporation profile in which the detection value obtained with the humidity sensor is plotted against the time.