US Patent Issued to Alphatec Spine on July 29 for "Surgical retractors and methods of using the same" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,369,897, issued on July 29, was assigned to Alphatec Spine Inc. (Carlsbad, Calif.).

"Surgical retractors and methods of using the same" was invented by Andrew W. Rajek (Escondido, Calif.), Steven Vidmar (Carlsbad, Calif.), James Lee (Vista, Calif.), David Considine (Carlsbad, Calif.) and Graham Witherby (Carlsbad, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed herein are surgical retractors and methods of using such surgical retractors where the surgical retractors include a base portion and two retractor blades. The base portion has (a) two extensions, each extension having a receiving area, and (b) and one or more engagement portions....