US Patent Issued to Edwards Lifesciences on Aug. 18 for "Minimally-invasive defect closure" (Maryland Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,708,358, issued on Aug. 18, was assigned to Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (Irvine, Calif.).

"Minimally-invasive defect closure" was invented by Felino V. Cortez Jr. (Bowie, Md.), Stephen Cournane (Severn, Md.), Nancy Ling Chung (Edgewater, Md.), Luke Anthony Zanetti (Parkton, Md.), Ashley Nicolette Hinga (Eldersburg, Md.) and Stephen Epstein (Millersville, Md.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Septal defect repair involves advancing an elongate shaft into an atrium of a heart of a patient through an outer atrial wall of the heart, contacting an atrial septum of the heart with a distal end of the elongate shaft, deploying a plurality of tissue ...