ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,703,161, issued on Aug. 11, was assigned to Alcon Inc. (Fribourg, Switzerland).
"Method for producing wettable silicone hydrogel contact lenses" was invented by Richard Charles Breitkopf (Dunwoody, Ga.), Feng Jing (Alpharetta, Ga.), Daqing Wu (Suwanee, Ga.), Jack W. Trieu (Atlanta) and Steve Yun Zhang (Sugar Hill, Ga.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention provides a method for producing coated silicone hydrogel contact lenses in a cost-effective manner. The method comprises treating the molding surfaces of polypropylene lens molds (or other hydrophobic plastic molds) with a vacuum UV or a corona plasma to increase the surface ener...