US Patent Issued to ST JUDE MEDICAL INTERNATIONAL HOLDING S.A R.L. on Sept. 15 for "Elongated surgical manipulator with body position and distal force sensing" (Swiss Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,734,336, issued on Sept. 15, was assigned to ST JUDE MEDICAL INTERNATIONAL HOLDING S.A R.L. (Luxembourg).

"Elongated surgical manipulator with body position and distal force sensing" was invented by Giovanni Leo (Cologny, Switzerland).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An elongated surgical manipulator apparatus and method of operating enables determination of the shape of a flexible portion of the elongated surgical manipulator and/or the location of an arbitrary point thereon, as well as a measure of a contact force exerted on a distal portion of the manipulator. A plurality of fiber optics are operatively coupled with the manipulator, eac...