US Patent Issued to Alcon on April 8 for "Weekly and monthly disposable water gradient contact lenses" (Georgia, Illinois Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,270,968, issued on April 8, was assigned to Alcon Inc. (Fribourg, Switzerland).

"Weekly and monthly disposable water gradient contact lenses" was invented by Yongxing Qiu (Suwanee, Ga.), John Dallas Pruitt (Suwanee, Ga.), Newton T. Samuel (Suwanee, Ga.), Chung-Yuan Chiang (Johns Creek, Ga.), Robert Carey Tucker (Johns Creek, Ga.), Yuan Chang (Chicago) and Ethan Leveillee (Atlanta).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention is related to contact lenses that not only comprise the much desired water gradient structural configurations, but also have a minimized uptakes of polycationic antimicrobials and a long-lasting surface hydrophilicity...