ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,213,681, issued on Feb. 4, was assigned to AtriCure Inc. (Mason, Ohio).
"End effector positioning mechanism" was invented by Michael J. Banchieri (Discovery Bay, Calif.), Matthew Monti (Cincinnati), Tamer Ibrahim (Danville, Calif.), Kenneth L. Miller (Hamilton, Ohio), Ara M. Stephanian (Davis, Calif.) and Dwight P. Morejohn (Davis, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An end effector positioning mechanism for a surgical device may include an articulation mechanism including a plurality of tiltable segments disposed generally in a longitudinal row between an elongated shaft of a surgical device and an end effector of the surgical device. ...