ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,546,770, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to BLINK AG (Jena, Germany).

"Microcapsule for detecting and/or quantitating an analyte in a sample" was invented by Thomas Ellinger (Jena, Germany), Stephan Hubold (Jena, Germany), Ivan Loncarevic (Jena, Germany), Torsten Schulz (Jena, Germany), Katrin Steinmetzer (Jena, Germany), Eugen Ermantraut (Jena, Germany), Lea Kanitz (Jena, Germany) and Oliver Lemuth (Jena, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention relates to a microcapsule for detecting and/or quantitating an analyte in a sample. Furthermore, the invention relates to a method of detecting and/quantitating an analyte in...