ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,589,028, issued on March 31, was assigned to Alcon Inc. (Fribourg, Switzerland).
"Grasping structure for membrane removal" was invented by Reto Gruebler (Greifensee, Switzerland) and Luca Palmerini (Basel, Switzerland).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An ophthalmic surgical instrument for peeling a retinal membrane includes a handle and an actuator mounted on the handle. An outer tube is mounted to the handle and an inner rod extends within the outer tube. A grasping structure is secured to a distal end of the inner rod having first and second polymer arms secured to the inner rod. Each of the first polymer arm and the second polymer arms ...