Patent ID: 7749553

Claim:
A method of applying a coating to a surface of an implantable medical device, the method comprising: depositing a plurality of drops of a coating material, each drop being deposited onto a predetermined location on the surface of the implantable medical device, each drop having a volume that is predetermined; determining an in-flight volume of at least one of the plurality of drops comprising: obtaining an image of a single drop after the drop has been ejected from an applicator and before the drop is deposited onto the predetermined location; determining a drop volume measurement from the image comprising: dividing the image of the drop into a number of slices from a first end of the image of the drop to a second end of the image of the drop; determining the volume of each slice of the number of slices; and adding the volumes of each of the number of slices to obtain the in-flight volume of the drop; calculating a measured volume of the coating material that has been deposited onto the surface of the implantable medical device; calculating a predicted volume of the coated material that has been deposited, the predicted volume being equal to the number of drops that have been deposited multiplied by the predetermined volume of each drop; comparing the measured volume to the predicted volume; and making an adjustment if the measured volume is different than the predicted volume, the adjustment consisting of modifying the predetermined volume of each drop, modifying a number of drops to be deposited, and any combination thereof, wherein a blocker is positioned so that at least one drop is deposited onto the blocker while making the adjustment.