Patent ID: 7695507

Claim:
A stent having a contracted state and an expanded state, wherein the stent is expandable from its contracted state to its expanded state, comprising: a plurality of expandable tubular members, each expandable tubular member disposed about a longitudinal axis, having a proximal end and a distal end and comprising a plurality of wave segments, each wave segment containing a pair of opposite looped peaks, one of said pair of opposite looped peaks being at the distal end and the other of said pair of opposite looped peaks being at the proximal end, and adjacent sides and having a wave shape, such that, in the stent's contracted state, the distance between adjacent sides of the wave segment monotonically decreases to a minimum at a point along a portion of the wave segment extending from one of the pair of opposite looped peaks of the wave segment at one end of the expandable tubular member to the point along the wave segment and thereafter along the wave segment, extending from said point to the remaining looped peak of the pair of opposite looped peaks at the other end of the tubular member, the distance between the adjacent sides of the wave segment at any point is greater than the minimum, and such that, in the stent's expanded state, the distance between the adjacent sides of the wave segment on proceeding from one of the pair of opposite looped peaks toward the remaining looped peak of the pair of opposite looped peaks increases monotonically, wherein, when the monotonically increasing distance is plotted as a function of distance from the one of the pair of opposite looped peaks at one end of the segment along the wave segment, the resulting curve includes an inflection point; and axial connectors joining adjacent expandable tubular members.