ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,408,996, issued on Sept. 9, was assigned to Asensus Surgical US Inc. (Durham, N.C.).
"Displaying suture force information in surgery" was invented by Kevin Andrew Hufford (Durham, N.C.) and Caleb T. Osborne (Durham, N.C.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a system and method conveying suture force information in surgery, real times images of a surgical site are captured and displayed on a display. A suture is engaged using at least one surgical instrument, which in some cases is a robotic surgical instrument. The system determines a tension in the suture using force data obtained from force sensors associated with the instrument or a rob...