ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,714,847, issued on Aug. 25, was assigned to Abiomed Europe GmbH (Aachen, Germany).
"Intravascular blood pump" was invented by Frank Kirchhoff (Aachen, Germany), Thorsten Siess (Aachen, Germany) and Wolfgang Kerkhoffs (Aachen, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An intravascular blood pump having a rotatable shaft carrying an impeller and a housing with an opening through which the shaft extends with the impeller positioned outside the housing. The shaft and the housing have surfaces forming a circumferential gap which has a gap width of no more than 2 micro metre over at least part of the length of the gap and at least one of the surf...