ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,258,553, issued on March 25, was assigned to BD KIESTRA B.V. (Drachten, Netherlands).
"Surface detection and picktool manipulator" was invented by Martijn Xander Berntsen (Leeuwarden, Netherlands), Jurjen Sinnema (Joure, Netherlands) and Martijn Kleefstra (Surhuisterveen, Netherlands).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A picktool manipulator device collects a specimen from a culture medium. In a first mode of operation, a picktool is allowed to move in an axial direction relative to support structure of the device. A detector may generate a signal in response to movement of the body in the axial direction so as to determine a height at which...