US Patent Issued to Intelligent Fiber Optic Systems on Nov. 4 for "Steerable biopsy needle with fiber-activated shape memory alloy" (Texas, California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,458,330, issued on Nov. 4, was assigned to Intelligent Fiber Optic Systems Corp. (Fremont, Calif.).

"Steerable biopsy needle with fiber-activated shape memory alloy" was invented by Seok Chang Ryu (College Station, Texas), Richard J. Black (Menlo Park, Calif.) and Behzad Moslehi (Los Altos, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A biopsy needle has a cylindrical shell outer cannula and a stylet consisting of an inner stylet and outer stylet, both of which are inserted into the cylindrical cannula. The outer stylet has a series of strain relieved slits which provide bending over a deflection region in one direction, and the outer stylet is ...