ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,324,639, issued on June 10, was assigned to Kawasaki Jukogyo K.K. (Kobe, Japan).

"Surgical system and method of controlling surgical manipulator arm" was invented by Tsuyoshi Tojo (Kobe, Japan), Nobuyasu Shimomura (Kobe, Japan) and Tetsuo Ichii (Kobe, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A controller of a surgical system is configured to: set a center point; set a reference point on a reference line that is an extension of a rotation axis of a proximal end roll joint or that is offset from the extension in a direction normal to the extension; and position joints of a manipulator arm such that a shaft passes through the center point and t...