US Patent Issued to Intuitive Surgical Operations on March 4 for "Medical tool with length conservation mechanism for actuating tension bands" (California Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,239,394, issued on March 4, was assigned to Intuitive Surgical Operations Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

"Medical tool with length conservation mechanism for actuating tension bands" was invented by Isabelle Heye (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An actuation assembly for a medical instrument connects four bands to three motorized degrees of freedom. The actuation assembly includes a first actuator, a second actuator and a third actuator. The first actuator is coupled to a first band a second band, the first actuator being operable to pull in one of the first and second bands and feed out the other of the first and second band...