US Patent Issued to Thompson Surgical Instruments on Oct. 6 for "Retractor system" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,751,704, issued on Oct. 6, was assigned to Thompson Surgical Instruments Inc. (Traverse City, Mich.).

"Retractor system" was invented by William White (Traverse City, Mich.), Zach Beery (Traverse City, Mich.), Chris Martin (Cedar, Mich.) and Dan Farley (Traverse City, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A retractor may include one or more racks and retractor blades coupled to the respective racks via respective carriages and retractor arms. The carriages may traverse respective racks to laterally position retractor blades. The retractor blades may include tracks which the retractor arms may traverse to longitudinally position retractor b...