ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,523,575, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to HITACHI HIGH-TECH Corp. (Tokyo).
"Method and apparatus for collecting bacteria" was invented by Kiyotaka Sugiyama (Tokyo), Hiroko Fujita (Tokyo) and Tsuyoshi Sonehara (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention relates to a method, a kit and an apparatus for pretreatment of bacterial test. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method, a kit, and an apparatus for continuously performing separation of blood cells and bacteria from a sample containing impurities such as blood cells, destruction of blood cells, and collection of bacteria."
The patent was filed on Ma...