ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,751,839, issued on Oct. 6, was assigned to Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tenn.).
"Powered-on passive knee prosthesis system" was invented by Michael Goldfarb (Nashville, Tenn.), Steven C. Culver (Nashville, Tenn.) and Leo G. Vailati (Nashville, Tenn.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A knee prosthesis system including a knee prosthesis, an actuator and a controlling unit. The knee prosthesis includes a thigh segment and a shank segment. The actuator rotatably connects the shank segment and the thigh segment. The actuator is configured to controllably assume a powered knee behavior to generate knee motion or a passive knee behavior to res...