Metal working – Means to assemble or disassemble – With magazine supply
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-18
2003-11-04
Vidovich, Gregory (Department: 3726)
Metal working
Means to assemble or disassemble
With magazine supply
C221S254000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06640428
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods and apparatuses for fabricating an assembly which includes a blunt and, in one particular embodiment, relates to an apparatus for fabricating a needle assembly which includes a blunt.
The present invention relates to medical devices and other similar devices and in particular to medical devices such as intravenous catheters and syringes which include a hollow needle having a sharp distal end for piercing an object, such as the skin of a patient.
The existence of infectious diseases has highlighted the danger to which medical personnel may be exposed when treating patients by means of catheter devices and syringes where a sharp needle point is used to pierce the skin of the patient. In order to protect medical personnel against inadvertent needle stick, a number of solutions have been developed whereby a protective mechanism, incorporated within a catheter or syringe, prevents physical contact with the sharp needle point after use and hence protects against inadvertent needle stick. One such solution which has been developed is the use of a blunt which is contained within the cannula of the hollow needle. An example of a blunt is described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/221,272, which was filed Dec. 23, 1998, by the inventors Joseph Chang, Philip Schmidt, and Dennis Bialecki and which is entitled “Solid Blunt for a Needle Assembly.” One example of a blunt described in this patent application is a blunt having a substantially D-shaped cross-section. In mass production, this blunt would typically be manufactured in large numbers before being inserted into the cannula of a needle in order to create the final product. Current manufacturing techniques for producing needle assemblies often include the use of a blade-style feeder which singulates a needle from a collection of needles in order to assemble the needle with the rest of the assembly which makes up the needle assembly.
FIG. 1
shows an example of a process for singulating a needle from a collection of needles in order to fabricate a needle assembly by connecting the needle to a hub, etc. The feeder
101
is shown in
FIG. 1
in cross-sectional view. The feeder includes a container
103
which has a wall
109
which supports a plurality of needles
107
such as needles
107
a,
107
b,
107
c,
and
107
d.
A blade-style feeder
105
is disposed within a slot
111
of the container
103
. The blade
105
is coupled to a motor
112
which drives the blade up and down as shown by the arrow
114
. When the blade
105
is driven down such that the top surface of the tip
105
a
is approximately at the position
105
b
as shown in
FIG. 1
, then one needle will tumble into the cutout of the tip
105
a.
As the blade
105
is pushed up away from the wall
109
to the position shown in
FIG. 1
, only one needle will remain in the tip
105
a
as any other needles will tumble off of the top of the tip
105
a.
This causes a single needle to be selected in a singulation process from the set of needles held in the container
103
.
It is desirable in the manufacturing process for needle assemblies which include blunts to use a similar blade-style feeder to singulate a blunt from a set of blunts in order to take the singulated blunt and then insert it into the cannula of a needle to assemble the needle assembly. A D-shaped blunt presents a challenge for the blade-style feeder shown in FIG.
1
. This challenge is shown in
FIGS. 2A
and
2
B which show that the blade
105
may not successfully singulate one blunt from a collection of blunts. As shown in
FIG. 2A
, which is a cross-sectional view, two D-shaped blunts
203
and
205
may be stably maintained on the cutout of the tip
105
a.
In this case, it may be impossible to singulate one blunt from a group of blunts. Similarly, as shown in
FIG. 2B
which is a cross-sectional view, two blunts
207
and
209
may remain stably held in the cutout of the tip
105
a
when the blunts stack vertically as shown in FIG.
2
B.
While it is desirable to use a feeder to singulate blunts in the same manner that a feeder is used to singulate needles, the currently existing blades do not provide adequate performance in singulating blunts.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that it is desirable to provide an improved method and apparatus for singulating a blunt in the process of fabricating a needle assembly or for fabricating other assemblies which use a blunt.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a method of fabricating an assembly which includes a blunt, and also provides an apparatus for fabricating an assembly which includes a blunt.
In one exemplary embodiment, a method of the invention includes collecting from a set of blunts at least one blunt in a blade having a cutout and passing a fluid past the cutout. In another example according to the present invention, the method includes moving a blade to a first position to collect at least one blunt from a set of blunts and moving the blade to a second position to singulate the one blunt from the set of blunts, where the blade has a tip end which is designed to capture securely only the one blunt and wherein any further blunts are not securely maintained in the tip end.
An apparatus in another exemplary embodiment includes a container for holding a set of blunts and includes a motor. A blade, which is disposed at least partially within a slot of the container and which is coupled to the motor, has a tip end which is designed to capture securely only one blunt, wherein any further blunts are not securely maintained in the tip end.
The present invention may be used to fabricate medical devices, including needles, syringes, catheter assemblies and introducers for catheters as well as other devices which include a blunt.
REFERENCES:
patent: 541853 (1895-07-01), Hart
patent: 1159195 (1915-11-01), Eden
patent: 1457050 (1923-05-01), Abbaticchio
patent: 1498476 (1924-06-01), Nadwocki
patent: 1696787 (1928-12-01), Zelkowitz et al.
patent: 2346863 (1944-04-01), Pacione
patent: 2541945 (1951-02-01), Smith
patent: 4375854 (1983-03-01), Hedel
patent: 4480765 (1984-11-01), Tonus
patent: 4809882 (1989-03-01), Neu
patent: 5067631 (1991-11-01), Baba
patent: 6039209 (2000-03-01), Yuyama et al.
Blakely , Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman LLP
Ethicon Inc.
Jimenez Marc
Vidovich Gregory
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