US Patent Issued to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS on May 13 for "Steerable flexible needle with embedded shape sensing" (American, Italian Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,295,718, issued on May 13, was assigned to INTUITIVE SURGICAL OPERATIONS INC. (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

"Steerable flexible needle with embedded shape sensing" was invented by Vincent Duindam (San Francisco), Simon P. DiMaio (San Carlos, Calif.), David Q. Larkin (Menlo Park, Calif.), Dorin Panescu (San Jose, Calif.) and Giuseppe Maria Prisco (Calci Pisa, Italy).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A surgical system includes a flexible steerable needle and a shape sensor for measuring the shape of the needle. The surgical system can be manual (e.g., laparoscopic), robotic, or any combination of the two. By directly measuring the shape of the needle, ...