ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,285,176, issued on April 29, was assigned to Covidien LP (Mansfield, Mass.).

"Multi-piece ligation clip" was invented by Justin Thomas (New Haven, Conn.), Roy J. Pilletere (Middletown, Conn.), Matthew A. Dinino (Newington, Conn.), Gregory R. Morck (Haddam, Conn.), Saumya Banerjee (Southington, Conn.), Eric Brown (Madison, Conn.) and Jacob C. Baril (Norwalk, Conn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Polymeric ligation clips and a clip applier for applying a polymeric ligation clip to tissue are disclosed herein. More particularly, the polymeric ligation clips include separate first and second beams that can be coupled to each other and are mova...