ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,521,137, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to OLYMPUS Corp. (Tokyo).
"Medical manipulator" was invented by Mitsuaki Hasegawa (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A medical manipulator includes a flexible shaft, a distal-end portion, an operating unit with which the distal-end portion is operated, a wire transmitting a motive force of the unit to the distal-end portion, a coil formed from a material having a greater rigidity than the shaft and one end thereof being secured to the distal-end portion and the other end thereof being secured to the unit, and a tube having a greater bending rigidity than the coil. The unit includes a socket con...