US Patent Issued to SMITH & NEPHEW, SMITH & NEPHEW ORTHOPAEDICS, SMITH & NEPHEW ASIA PACIFIC on Feb. 17 for "Collinear reduction clamp" (Tennessee Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,551,257, issued on Feb. 17, was assigned to SMITH & NEPHEW INC. (Memphis, Tenn.), SMITH & NEPHEW ORTHOPAEDICS AG (Zug, Switzerland) and SMITH & NEPHEW ASIA PACIFIC PTE. Ltd. (Singapore).

"Collinear reduction clamp" was invented by Gabriel E. Rapalo (Arlington, Tenn.), Ramprasad Papannagari (Collierville, Tenn.), Charles R. Bennett (Memphis, Tenn.) and Nicholas S. Ritchey (Collierville, Tenn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A collinear reduction clamp including a compression rod, an arm, and an advancing mechanism for moving the compression rod relative to the arm. In some examples, the rod may include a cannulated bore to enable a bone sc...