ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,544,054, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to Mazor Robotics Ltd. (Caesarea, Israel).
"Automated robotic retractor" was invented by Eli Zehavi (Tel-Aviv, Israel), Moshe Shoham (Hoshaya, Israel), Yonatan Ushpizin (Glil Yam, Israel) and Avi Turgeman (Beer Yaakov, Israel).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems and methods for robotic retraction of tissues in a surgical field. Two retractor mechanisms are used on either side of an incision. Each retractor is adapted to be held by a robotic arm, which applies force on the retractor mechanism to pull dissected tissue away from the incision, thus revealing the operative field. A force sensor is em...