US Patent Issued to Alcon on Oct. 6 for "Grasping structures for membrane removal" (Swiss Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,751,861, issued on Oct. 6, was assigned to Alcon Inc. (Fribourg, Switzerland).

"Grasping structures 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: "A surgical instrument includes a flexible outer grasping member and a flexible inner grasping member for peeling a membrane from the retina of a patient's eye. The surgical instrument includes a handle and at least one actuator. An outer tube has a proximal end mounted to the handle. The outer and inner grasping members extend outwardly from a distal end of the outer tube, or are configured to e...