ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,471,897, issued on Nov. 18, was assigned to LIFETECH SCIENTIFIC (SHENZHEN) Co. LTD. (Shenzhen, China).

"Plugging device" was invented by Anning Li (Shenzhen, China), Jianyong Liu (Shenzhen, China), Yuhua Tang (Shenzhen, China) and Jia Jia (Shenzhen, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A plugging device, including a first part, and a second part connected to the first part. The first part or the second part includes a plurality of braiding filaments and a gathering member; portions of the braiding filaments that are close to one ends of the braiding filaments cooperate to form a disc face. The plugging device further includes a film memb...