US Patent Issued to HOYA on Jan. 13 for "Endoscope" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,521,000, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to HOYA Corp. (Tokyo).

"Endoscope" was invented by Tetsu Hirayama (Tokyo), Takahiro Kobayashi (Tokyo) and Naoyuki Naito (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The endoscope includes an insertion portion, a hand-operating unit, a first treatment-instrument conduit, and a second treatment-instrument conduit. One end of the insertion portion is coupled to the hand-operating unit. The first treatment-instrument conduit passes through insides of the insertion portion and the hand-operating unit. A treatment instrument is inserted into the first treatment-instrument conduit from an upper end of the hand-...