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Patricia Vaillancourt, Legal Representative

Vincent L Vaillancourt

Michael J Vaillancourt

The needle guard is attached to the needle hub by a polyester film strip and the needle passes through longitudinally spaced apart apertures in the strip. The film strip is housed in the needle guard in corrugated manner. When the needle guard is pulled over the needle, the needle moves into the housing of the needle guard and into abutment with the housing while the strip is stretched between the hub and the housing to retain the housing connected to the hub under a biasing force.

Needle guard

The Huber needle is drawn into a protective cap and sheath arrangement after use for disposal purposes. The cap is tethered to a housing in which the needle is mounted by the sheath. The sheath is made of a film material that has a high tensile strength and a low percent of elongation, such as polyester. The sheath is initially mounted about the needle in a collapsed accordion-like condition between the cap and housing. When the cap is moved along the needle, the sheath is played out over the needle. The cap houses a spring clip to snap over a bore through which the needle is retracted to prevent re-emergence of the needle. The flexible nature of the sheath allows the sheath to pass about the two legs of the Huber needle.

Safety needle with collapsible sheath

The needle guard employs a spring clip that has a pair of apertured locks through which the needle passes. The aperture in the foremost lock is defined by cutouts that deflect inwardly upon withdrawal of the needle in order to block a return passage of the needle. The end of the needle is enlarged to abut against the rearmost lock and to further prevent a return passage through the foremost lock. The enlarged end of the needle is trapped between the two locks after being drawn into the needle guard.

The positive flow needleless connector has a cannula slideably mounted within a tubular housing. A sleeve-like septum seals the cannula from an outside environment while also sealing an internal chamber of the cannula from a flow path in a male luer housing. Movement of the cannula from an extended position to a retracted position against the force of a spring exposes a second inlet of the cannula to the flow path of the male luer housing to permit flow therebetween. During disconnect, the inlet from the cannula is sealed prior to the cannula returning the extended position. This allows fluid to move from a reservoir between the cannula and septum to move into the passage of the male luer housing.

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Livingston, NJ, United States of America

Patricia Vaillancourt, Legal Representative