US Patent Issued to Intuitive Surgical Operations on July 21 for "Single port instrument access device" (Connecticut, California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,685,560, issued on July 21, was assigned to Intuitive Surgical Operations Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

"Single port instrument access device" was invented by Ronald G. Litke (Sandy Hook, Conn.), Jake A. Luckman (New Haven, Conn.) and Jeffrey D. Brown (Palo Alto, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed are medical devices for surgical procedures, especially procedures that involve the manipulation of surgical instrument end effectors close to the skin surface at an incision site. In accordance with some embodiments, an instrument access device is configured to couple to a wound retractor at a distal end of the device and to receive a...