US Patent Issued to Covidien on April 22 for "Powered surgical instruments and methods of identifying tissue types therewith" (Connecticut Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,279,915, issued on April 22, was assigned to Covidien LP (Mansfield, Mass.).

"Powered surgical instruments and methods of identifying tissue types therewith" was invented by Matthew Eschbach (Cheshire, Conn.), Robert H. Knapp (Middlebury, Conn.) and Alexander W. Caulk (Trumbull, Conn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A surgical instrument includes an end effector configured to clamp tissue, a motor configured to actuate the end effector, and a controller in communication with the motor and configured to determine a stress and strain of the tissue, identify a tissue type of the tissue based on the determined stress and strain of the tissue, ...