Patent 6928686 was granted and assigned to Koken Ltd. on August, 2005 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A washing apparatus for an endoscope includes a wire brush, a region for housing the wire brush and a driver adapted to advance and retract the wire brush. The wire brush is received in a pipe section of the wire housing region so that the wire brush may be selectively advanced out or retracted in this pipe section which is, in turn, provided along its front end portion and a rear end portion with position sensors to detect a position of a wire component of the wire brush.