ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,364,558, issued on July 22, was assigned to MAKO Surgical Corp. (Weston, Fla.).

"Robotic cutting systems and methods for surgical saw blade cutting on hard tissue" was invented by Seamus Gilhooley (Athenry, Ireland), David Gene Bowling (Los Ranchos De Albuquerque, N.M.) and Paul Shiels (Albuquerque, N.M.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A surgical system and method of operating the same include a manipulator with a base, a robotic arm coupled to the base, and a saw tool coupled to the robotic arm to perform a cut of a bone. A control system is coupled the manipulator and obtains data defining a cutting plane for the bone and a pre-determin...