ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,419,631, issued on Sept. 23, was assigned to EDWARDS LIFESCIENCES Corp. (Irvine, Calif.).
"Controlled suture tensioning" was invented by Jyoti B. Rao (Brea, Calif.), John Richard Carpenter (Santa Ana, Calif.) and Bryan A. Janish (Huntington Beach, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A tensioning device includes an elongate plunger, a plunger track housing configured to receive the plunger therein at least in part, an elongate tube configured to be coupled to the plunger track housing, and an actuator configured to cause axial translation of at least a portion of the plunger within the plunger track housing."
The patent was filed on O...