ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,396,731, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to Covidien LP (Mansfield, Mass.).

"Implantable embolization device" was invented by Yihan Wang (Shanghai), Victoria Schuman (Minneapolis), Zhimin Fang (Shanghai), Yapeng Xu (Shanghai), Haitao Cao (Shanghai), Zhipeng Chen (Shanghai), Xiaojing Guo (Shanghai) and Shichang Wen (Shanghai).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In some examples, an embolization device includes multiple sections with three-dimensional non-helical structures when deployed at a vascular site. The multiple sections include a first section and one or more second sections that are smaller than the first section. The first section may...