ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,685,558, issued on July 21, was assigned to Bard Access Systems Inc. (Salt Lake City).
"Skin nicking device for catheter placement system" was invented by Glade H. Howell (Draper, Utah).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A catheter placement system including a catheter, a needle for creating an insertion site, and a skin nicking device for enlarging the insertion site. A catheter placement device includes the skin nicking device slidably coupled with the needle, where the skin nicking device has one or more blades attached to a frame thereof. Distally displacing the skin nicking device along the needle causes the blade to nick the skin to enl...