US Patent Issued to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS on March 25 for "Methods and apparatus for displaying three-dimensional orientation of a steerable distal tip of an endoscope" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,256,891, issued on March 25, was assigned to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS INC. (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

"Methods and apparatus for displaying three-dimensional orientation of a steerable distal tip of an endoscope" was invented by Robert Eno (Mountain View, Calif.), Amir Belson (Los Altos, Calif.), David Blaha (Sunnyvale, Calif.), David Mintz (Mountain View, Calif.) and Bruce R. Woodley (Palo Alto, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for controlling an orientation of a steerable distal portion of an elongate instrument, said instrument comprising at least one tensioning member attached to said steerable distal portion may includ...