US Patent Issued to Covidien on June 3 for "Thoracic imaging, distance measuring, surgical awareness, and notification system and method" (Colorado Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,318,064, issued on June 3, was assigned to Covidien LP (Mansfield, Mass.).

"Thoracic imaging, distance measuring, surgical awareness, and notification system and method" was invented by John W. Komp (Dillon, Colo.), Joe D. Sartor (Longmont, Colo.) and Irena Cantrall (Boulder, Colo.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for enhanced surgical navigation, and a system performing the method and displaying graphical user interfaces associated with the method. A 3D spatial map of a surgical site is generated using a 3D endoscope including a camera source and an IR scan source. The method includes detecting a needle tip protruding from an anat...