ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,544,496, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to Baxter International Inc. (Deerfield, Ill.) and Baxter Healthcare SA (Glattpark, Switzerland).
"Medical apparatus" was invented by Stefano Ribuoli (Mirandola, Italy), Marco Paraluppi (Modena, Italy) and Andrea Di Buono (Modena, Italy).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A medical apparatus comprises a medical machine and a manifold assembly mounted or mountable on the medical machine. The medical machine comprises an occlusion element comprising a plunger configured to be moved between a retracted position, in which the plunger is spaced from a soft membrane of the manifold and a port of the manifold...