US Patent Issued to Thompson Surgical Instruments on Nov. 18 for "Surgical retractor and bidirectional ratchet" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,471,900, issued on Nov. 18, was assigned to Thompson Surgical Instruments Inc. (Traverse City, Mich.).

"Surgical retractor and bidirectional ratchet" was invented by Paul VanWagner (Kingsley, Mich.), Adam Francis (Traverse City, Mich.) and William White (Traverse City, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A surgical device includes a ratchet having pawls biased to a locked position in which the pawls prevent movement of a ratchet body along a rack. A pinion and a cam disc of the ratchet cooperate to selectively release the pawls from the rack and impart ratcheted movement of the ratchet body along the rack. Rotation of a handle rotates t...