US Patent Issued to Edwards Lifesciences on Sept. 29 for "Apparatus and methods for reducing paravalvular leakage" (California Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,746,115, issued on Sept. 29, was assigned to Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (Irvine, Calif.).

"Apparatus and methods for reducing paravalvular leakage" was invented by Evan T. Schwartz (Huntington Beach, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "This disclosure is directed to a docking device for a prosthetic heart valve. The docking device includes an inflow end, an outflow end, a support structure disposed between the inflow end and the outflow end, and an expandable sleeve. The support structure includes inflow and outflow sections that are configured to be positioned on inflow and outflow sides, respectively, of a native heart valve. The ou...