US Patent Issued to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS on March 18 for "Configuration marker design and detection for instrument tracking" (California, Florida Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,251,170, issued on March 18, was assigned to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS INC. (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

"Configuration marker design and detection for instrument tracking" was invented by Tao Zhao (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Wenyi Zhao (Weston, Fla.) and William C. Nowlin (Los Altos Hills, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system may comprise a tool including at least one reference feature. a processor, and a memory having computer readable instructions stored thereon. The computer readable instructions, when executed by the processor, may cause the system to receive image data including an image of the tool and the at least one reference f...