US Patent Issued to Covidien on March 18 for "Surgical access device having a balloon and methods for manufacturing the same" (Connecticut Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,251,130, issued on March 18, was assigned to Covidien LP (Mansfield, Mass.).

"Surgical access device having a balloon and methods for manufacturing the same" was invented by Jason Mickus (Avon, Conn.), Kevin M. Desjardin (Prospect, Conn.), Christopher A. Tokarz (Wallingford, Conn.) and Astley C. Lobo (West Haven, Conn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of forming a balloon for a surgical access device includes positioning a molding material into a channel defined in a first mold half of a mold and mounting a second mold half onto the first mold half to cover the channel and form a cavity within the mold. The first and second mold ...