US Patent Issued to TERUMO on Aug. 4 for "Image diagnosis catheter" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,697,094, issued on Aug. 4, was assigned to TERUMO K.K. (Tokyo).

"Image diagnosis catheter" was invented by Katsuhiko Shimizu (Fujinomiya, Japan), Hiroyuki Ishihara (Tokyo), Yasukazu Sakamoto (Hiratsuka, Japan) and Yoichiro Kuwano (Machida, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image diagnosis catheter is disclosed, which includes: a sheath inserted into a living body; an ultrasound vibrator capable of transmitting and receiving ultrasound in the sheath; a housing holding the ultrasound vibrator in the sheath; and a drive shaft attached to a proximal side of the housing and rotatable in the sheath, in which an ultrasound transmitting/rec...