US Patent Issued to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on March 25 for "Ultra-compact folded-beam path confocal endomicroscope" (Michigan, California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,259,543, issued on March 25, was assigned to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

"Ultra-compact folded-beam path confocal endomicroscope" was invented by Thomas D. Wang (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Haijun Li (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Xiyu Duan (San Jose, Calif.) and Gaoming Li (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A compact single-axis confocal endomicroscope is provided, capable of complying with 2.8 mm diameter endoscope space requirements. The single-axis confocal endomicroscope uses a folded path design achieved between a fixed mirror and a lateral plane scanning mirror thereby producing high numerical aperture...