US Patent Issued to Circa Scientific on April 22 for "System with instrument port for epicardial ablation" (Massachusetts Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,279,809, issued on April 22, was assigned to Circa Scientific Inc. (Englewood, Colo.).

"System with instrument port for epicardial ablation" was invented by Thomas Marchand (Boston) and Jonathan B. O'Keefe (North Attleboro, Mass.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An instrument port includes an elongated shaft, a bendable shaft, a steerable tip, an offset balloon, and a handle. The bendable shaft has a proximal end attached to the distal end of the elongated shaft along a shaft axis, the bendable shaft configured to bend only within a pivot plane that is defined by the shaft axis and a pivot axis that is orthogonal to the shaft axis. The stee...