Surgery – Endoscope – With tool carried on endoscope or auxillary channel therefore
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-15
2004-03-02
Bennett, Henry (Department: 3743)
Surgery
Endoscope
With tool carried on endoscope or auxillary channel therefore
C600S101000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06699178
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an ear-pick, which is capable of removing earwax safely and securely.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional ear-pick is basically a stick with a small spoon-like portion or a cotton blob at its end. Therefore, if one wished to remove ear wax or foreign objects such as an insect or water in one's ear, the only thing one could do was to scratch the inside of the ear blindly with an ear-pick because one could not see the inside of the auditory canal.
However, there is the danger of hurting the inside of the ear in scratching the inside of one's ear blindly so that it is hardly a safe thing to do. Thus, it has been very difficult to clean the inside of one' own ear by oneself using the conventional ear-pick.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention intends to provide an ear-pick that enables one to remove earwax and foreign objects such as insects or water from the inside of one's ear safely and securely.
The invention is an endoscopic auditory canal cleaning apparatus comprising: an ear-pick main body having a scraping part at its distal end, to which light is being introduced; a light source that generates said light; an image capturing means that captures images of the inside of the ear canal; a display means that displays the images captured by the image capturing means; and a holding part that holds the ear-pick main body; wherein the image capturing means passes through a hollow opening provided in the holding part and the holding part rotates freely around the image capturing means.
In the present invention, the light from the light source radiates the inside of the auditory canal via the ear-pick main body. The images of the inside of the auditory canal, which is illuminated by the light, are captured by the image capturing means and guided to the display means, which displays them. The user can remove foreign objects while watching their images. Moreover, since the holding part can rotate around the image capturing means, the holding part and the ear-pick main body can be rotated together to clean the inside of the auditory canal while the images displayed by the display means are held in a fixed direction.
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Bennett Henry
Coden Co. Ltd.
Patel Nihir
Rosser Roy
Woodbridge Richard C.
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