ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,599,289, issued on April 14, was assigned to Olympus Medical Systems Corp. (Tokyo).
"Endoscope" was invented by Yosuke Isobe (Nishitokyo, Japan) and Takeo Suzuki (Hachioji, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An endoscope comprising: an insertion portion; a raising base provided at a distal end of the insertion portion; a wire configured to move in a raising direction to raise the raising base; a biasing element attached to the wire and configured to apply to the wire a biasing force in the raising direction; and an operation portion coupled to a proximal end of the insertion portion, the operation portion including a switching mechani...