ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,296,476, issued on May 13, was assigned to Endo Robotics Co. Ltd. (Seoul, South Korea).
"Tendon-sheath driving apparatus" was invented by Kyungnam Kim (Seoul, South Korea), Byung Gon Kim (Seoul, South Korea) and Yechan Seo (Seoul, South Korea).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed is a tendon-sheath driving apparatus. A tendon-sheath driving apparatus according to an embodiment of the disclosure includes: a sheath having a predetermined length, being flexible and having a hollow shape; a tendon placed inside a hollow of the sheath; a rod coupled to an outer surface of a first side of the tendon, and having higher rigidity than the shea...