ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 20 -- United States Patent no. 12,390,370, issued on Aug. 19.
"Tympanostomy tube" was invented by John Vaughan (Blarney, Ireland), Olive O'Driscoll (Kinsale, Ireland) and Carol Grimes (Skerries, Ireland).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A fluidic bridging tube (1), for bridging membranes in the human or animal body allowing the passage of fluid, has a proximal flange (2), an inter lumen connector (3) with a lumen (5) and a distal flange (4). The tube comprises a metal skeleton or scaffold structure (51) and a surrounding polymer which is softer than the scaffold structure. The scaffold structure (51) has a tubular mesh providing structural strength to the inter lumen connec...