US Patent Issued to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS on Jan. 13 for "Ultrasound elongate instrument systems and methods" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,521,189, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS INC. (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

"Ultrasound elongate instrument systems and methods" was invented by Serena H. Wong (Los Altos, Calif.), Federico Barbagli (San Francisco) and Samuel Raybin (San Jose, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system may include an elongate flexible device, a flexible instrument, and a processor. The elongate flexible device may include a first shape sensor configured to generate first shape data corresponding to a shape of the elongate flexible device. The flexible instrument may include a second shape sensor configured to generate second s...