ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 29 -- United States Patent no. 12,208,009, issued on Jan. 28, was assigned to NeoChord Inc. (Maple Grove, Minn.).
"Minimally invasive heart valve repair in a beating heart" was invented by Andrea Colli (Padua, Italy).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In one embodiment, a method of repairing a heart valve accesses an interior of a patient's beating heart minimally invasively and inserts one or more sutures into each of a plurality of heart valve leaflets with a suturing instrument. The suture ends of the sutures are divided into suture pairs, with each pair including one suture end from a suture inserted into a first valve leaflet and one suture end from a suture inserted int...