ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,426,852, issued on Sept. 30, was assigned to ASAHI INTECC Co. LTD. (Seto, Japan).

"Catheter with acoustic lens arrangement for localized ultrasonic wave transmission" was invented by Satoshi Namima (Seto, Japan), Fumiyoshi Oshima (Seto, Japan) and Yuta Kubo (Seto, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A catheter includes a transmission unit that is disposed at the distal end of a tube having a lumen and has an ultrasonic wave transmitting function; a reception unit that is disposed at the distal end of the tube and has an ultrasonic wave receiving function; and an acoustic lens that is disposed so as to cover only the transmission unit a...