ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,357,342, issued on July 15, was assigned to Medos International Sarl (LeLocie, Switzerland).

"Scalpel guide" was invented by Jorn Richter (Oberdorf, Switzerland), Roman Lomeli (Raynham, Mass.) and Philippe Lindenmann (Raynham, Mass.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Scalpel guides for use with a tool guide of a surgical system are described. In one version, the scalpel guide includes a body defining a first guide slot sized and shaped to receive a body of a scalpel to guide a blade of the scalpel along a central axis without any lateral movement of the scalpel. The body also defines a second guide slot arranged such that the body of the sca...