ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,263,084, issued on April 1, was assigned to MEDTRONIC INC. (Minneapolis).
"Compact prosthetic heart valve device" was invented by Cahal McVeigh (White Bear Township, Minn.), Jean-Pierre Dueri (Los Gatos, Calif.), Yogesh A. Darekar (Irvine, Calif.), Priya Nair (Shoreview, Minn.), Finn O. Rinne (Santa Rosa, Calif.), George N. Hallak (Costa Mesa, Calif.), Brenda L. McIntire (Walnut Creek, Calif.) and Elliot J. Howard (San Carlos, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The devices and methods of this disclosure relate to a heart valve prosthesis that is configured to be implanted within a native heart valve having a smaller perimeter annuli w...