Ethicon, Gmbh

William Van Ness

Robert J Kalinski

A folder package for a suture anchor. The package has a base panel foldably connected to a connecting panel. A cover panel is foldably connected to the connecting panel. First and second end connecting panels are foldably connected to the cover panel. A needle park member is mounted to the base panel to retain surgical needles and optionally retain the suture anchor. A handle cover panel having opposed sides is foldably connected to the base panel. A connecting panel having opposed major and opposed minor sides is foldably connected along a first major side to an opposite side of the handle cover panel, and a tab member is foldably connected to the second major side of the connecting panel. The base panel has a tab member formed by a U-shaped slit for retaining the needle park member. The base panel also has L-shaped slits forming L-shaped members for retaining a shaft of a suture anchor applicator. The base panel further has a pair of tab member formed form U-shaped slits and tabs to retain a handle of a suture anchor applicator. The cover panel has a plurality of tabs and tab pockets, formed by arcuate slits, for locking the package by engaging a side of the base panel in the tab pockets. A portion of each end panel is also engaged in a tab pocket to further provide for the locking of the package.

Suture anchor package

A packaging for the protective sterile containment of a rigid product and, more particularly, a sealed container protectively enclosing the sterile product, such as a liquid-filled vial, during shipment and handling of the packaging, and upon opening of the packaging in a sterile environment; for instance, a surgical operating room, facilitating the sterile transfer of the product from the packaging into the sterile environment. The packaging includes a substantially rigid, resiliently flexible thermoformed plastic container having a plurality of indentations or recessed wall portions molded or thermoformed into various of the side, end and bottom wall surfaces of the container, with such wall portions forming contacting surfaces shaped in correlation with the exterior surface portions of a product housed in the container so as to position the product therein in a specified orientation, and in which at least one of the indentations includes product-gripping structure protectively maintaining the product within the packaging container in its fixed position during shipping and handling of the container so as to be secure from potential damage due to impacts or shocks imparted to the packaging. The indentations are formed with venting ridges constituting tubular passages between the mutually contacting surfaces of the container and the product to enable an improved and substantially unhindered circulation of sterilizing gases throughout the interior of the packaging and about the product.

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Flemington, NJ, United States of America

William Van Ness