New Patents

• Bio DG has received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for biodegradable metal alloys used in medical device implants. The San Diego, Calif.-based company claims its non-toxic alloys are as strong as steel but can be shaped into various products such as screws, plates, sutures or stents. In addition to its strength, the material reportedly is austenitic (it will not react in a magnetic field) and engineered to dissolve from exterior surfaces without compromising the internal structure. “These alloys have tremendous potential,” noted Bio DG Chief Operating Officer Herbert R. Radisch Jr. “Within the orthopedic space they can replace stainless steel and titanium alloy devices meant for temporary or semi-permanent implants. Within the cardiovascular space they can be used to develop strong biodegradable stents…And within the suturing/stapling space, they can be used to develop and implantable surgical staple that does not require a second surgical intervention for removal.”

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted four patents to Waltham, Mass.-based GeNO LLC for its inhaled nitric oxide (NO) delivery system. The latest patents—which push the company’s total to 16—protect the firm’s methodology of turning NO2 (a liquid at room temperature) to NO through a reaction with ascorbic acid, or Vitamin C. Company executives plan to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to treat newborns with pulmonary arterial hypertension using GeNO’s patented NO conversion technology. The firm’s GeNOsyl MV-1000 device is FDA-approved as a medical device but needs the agency’s blessing as a drug due to the NO gas it creates when administered to patients. Such approval for newborns is expected in several years.

• Hansen Medical Inc. has beefed up its medical robotics intellectual property portfolio by 30 additional U.S. patents. Many of the patents the Mountain View, Calif.-based company has received since January 2011 are for its Magellan Robotic System while others pertain to its Sensei X Robotic Catheter System and a few protect ideas for potential “future advancements” to the firm’s robotic technologies.

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent to Medtronic Inc. for an “implantable medical device crosstalk evaluation and mitigation” system. The Minneapolis, Minn.-based medtech behemoth has predictably released few public details about the system (reportedly designed by seven co-inventors) but an abstract filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office provides several clues to its purpose and mechanics: “Electrical crosstalk between two implantable medical devices or two different therapy modules of a common implantable medical device may be evaluated and, in some examples, mitigated. In some examples, one of the implantable medical devices or therapy modules delivers electrical stimulation to a nonmyocardial tissue site or a nonvascular cardiac tissue site, and the other implantable medical device or therapy module delivers cardiac rhythm management therapy to the heart of a patient.”

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted three patents to Miracor Medical Systems GmbH, an Austrian company with expertise in improving outcomes for heart attack and cardiac surgery patients. The new patents cover a dual balloon method and the new “Wien Algorithm” of its PICSO (Pressure-controlled Intermittent Coronary Sinus Occlusion) Impulse system, which helps improve blood flow in heart tissue and enhances the heart’s overall function after a severe coronary attack. Approved by European regulators, the PICSO Impulse System can be used during balloon angioplasty, stent placement or other methods for improving coronary blood flow. The PICSO approach intermittently increases pressure in the coronary venous system, thereby redistributing blood flow into the affected heart tissue and, in some patients, also increases coronary artery perfusion pressure.

• Little Falls, N.J.-based mPhase Technologies Inc. has received a U.S. modular device patent. The copyright protects the company’s battery-powered handheld modular device featuring multiple interchangeable components. The patent also covers its emergency modular device system with various compatible components.