ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,426,901, issued on Sept. 30, was assigned to Stryker European Operations Ltd. (Carrigtwohill, Ireland).
"Plate to nail alignment pin/k-wire" was invented by Nils Zander (Eckernforde, Germany), Manfred Wieland (Kiel, Germany) and Hendrik Kluever (Schoenkirchen, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for aligning an aiming block with respect to a bone includes driving a bone screw into a bone to pass a tip of the bone screw through a hole of an intramedullary nail and to anchor a head of the bone screw in a cortical region of the bone; inserting a pin extending from a surface of an aiming block through a hole of a bone plate; and...