ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,329,357, issued on June 17.
"Device and method for contamination-free performance of an endoscopic examination" was invented by Jurgen Kress (Essenbach, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An endoscope with a contamination protection device for protecting the endoscope and a person performing an examination on a patient from contamination. The endoscope has a rigid or flexible shaft, an inner sleeve configured to be unrolled from a rolled-up state over the shaft to cover the shaft in an airtight, watertight and germ-tight manner, and an outer sleeve configured to envelop the inner sleeve. The outer sleeve is connected in an airtight, ...