US Patent Issued to OLYMPUS on June 10 for "Bending operation mechanism for endoscope and endoscope" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,324,566, issued on June 10, was assigned to OLYMPUS Corp. (Tokyo).

"Bending operation mechanism for endoscope and endoscope" was invented by Motohiko Suzuki (Sagamihara, Japan), Takuto Yoshinaga (Hino, Japan), Tsukasa Ota (Hachioji, Japan), Wataru Matsuura (Fuchu, Japan) and Keita Mitsuhashi (Hachioji, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A bending operation mechanism for an endoscope, which is a pulley unit, includes: an up-down bending pulley which is a rotation body; an angle wire which is a bending-portion pulling member having a distal end side connected to a bending portion and a proximal end side that is pulled by the up-down bend...