ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,290,320, issued on May 6, was assigned to Cilag GmbH International (Zug, Switzerland).

"Methods and systems for controlling cooperative surgical instruments" was invented by Frederick E. Shelton IV (Hillsboro, Ohio), Charles J. Scheib (Loveland, Ohio) and Jason L. Harris (Lebanon, Ohio).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems, devices, and methods for controlling cooperative surgical instruments are provided. Various aspects of the present disclosure provide for coordinated operation of surgical instruments accessing various surgical sites from different or shared surgical approaches to achieve a common or cooperative surgical purpose. For...