ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,426,965, issued on Sept. 30, was assigned to Obvius Robotics Inc. (Asheville, N.C.).

"Image-guided robotic arm for inserting a penetrating member into a body lumen" was invented by William E. Cohn (Bellaire, Texas), Russell Seiber (Asheville, N.C.), James Patrick Herlihy (Houston), Kenneth Wayne Rennicks (Pearland, Texas) and Scott Nortman (Sunrise, Fla.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image-guided robotic system for advancing a penetrating member into a body lumen located beneath a skin surface of a patient, the image-guided robotic system comprising: a detector for obtaining data representative of a location of the body lumen beneat...