ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,343,020, issued on July 1, was assigned to Aesculap AG (Tuttlingen, Germany).
"Surgical instrument system" was invented by Franz-Peter Firmbach (Emmingen-Liptingen, Germany) and Svenja Anhorn (Heroldstatt, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A surgical instrument system for use in a total knee arthroplasty includes an intramedullary rod and a reference block. The intramedullary rod is elongated between a proximal rod end and a distal rod end and is adapted for introduction into the medullary space of a femur. The reference block is or can be slid onto the distal rod end and has a block rear side oriented in a proximal direction. The bl...