Intuitive Surgical Patent Grants

Geared roll drive for medical instrument

Granted: January 9, 2024
Patent Number: 11864851
A medical instrument includes a roll mechanism that rotates an instrument shaft. The roll mechanism may include a first gear coupled to the instrument shaft and meshed with a second gear. One of gears may be a spur gear while the other gear may be a beveloid gear. Further, the spur gear and the beveloid gear may be in a gear train containing a compressible gear, e.g., a gear with an inner center piece, an outer ring, and a flexible interconnecting structure between the inner center piece…

Surgical instrument with lockout mechanism

Granted: January 9, 2024
Patent Number: 11864762
Surgical instruments, such as clamping and cutting instruments, are provided. In one aspect, a surgical stapling instrument comprises first and second jaws and a drive member configured to move in a distal direction through at least one of the jaws. The instrument further includes a locking member movable between a first position permitting distal translation of the drive member, and a second position impeding distal translation of the drive member, and a switch movable from a proximal…

Targets, fixtures, and workflows for calibrating an endoscopic camera

Granted: January 2, 2024
Patent Number: 11863733
A calibration assembly may be used with an endoscopic imaging system having a field of view. The calibration assembly may comprise an interface configured for constraining engagement with the endoscopic imaging system and a target coupled with the interface so as to be within the field of view. The target may include a plurality of calibration features. The calibration assembly may be reconfigurable from a first spatial arrangement between the target and the endoscopic imaging system to…

Compositions of near IR closed chain, sulfo-cyanine dyes and prostate specific membrane antigen ligands

Granted: January 2, 2024
Patent Number: 11857645
Compositions and methods for visualizing tissue under illumination with fusion compounds of near-infrared radiation using near IR, closed chain, sulfo-cyanine dyes and prostate specific membrane antigen ligands are provided.

Surgical instrument steering inputs

Granted: January 2, 2024
Patent Number: 11857284
A surgical instrument includes: an adjustable end effector; an elongated instrument shaft defining an internal bore; and a drive assembly including a housing coupled to an end of the instrument shaft and an input device configured to facilitate controlled adjustment of the end effector via a drive cable extending along the bore of the instrument shaft. The input device includes: a drive shaft attached to a first portion of the drive cable, the drive shaft including an upstanding stem…

Master/slave registration and control for teleoperation

Granted: January 2, 2024
Patent Number: 11857280
A teleoperated system comprises a display, a master input device, and a control system. The control system is configured to determine an orientation of an end effector reference frame relative to a field of view reference frame, determine an orientation of a master input device reference frame relative to a display reference frame, establish an alignment relationship between the master input device reference frame and the display reference frame, and command, based on the alignment…

Articulation assemblies for surgical instruments

Granted: January 2, 2024
Patent Number: 11857188
The present disclosure provides a surgical instrument, such as a tissue sealing instrument, with an elongate shaft and an end effector movably coupled to the shaft with a joint or wrist assembly. The wrist assembly includes a first outer link, a second outer link, and an inner link. The first outer link is connected to the elongated shaft and movably coupled to the second outer link by the inner link. The inner link includes a pair of posts, and the first and second outer links each…

Surgical system with combined laser ablation/ imaging tool

Granted: December 26, 2023
Patent Number: 11850093
In one embodiment of the invention, a robotic surgical system includes a combined laser imaging robotic surgical tool, a control console, and a laser generator/controller. The tool is mounted to a first robotic arm of a patient side cart. The tool has a wristed joint and an end effector coupled together. The end effector has a laser-emitting device to direct a laser beam onto tissue in a surgical site and an image-capturing device to capture images of the tissue in the surgical site. The…

Systems and methods for determining an arrangement of explanted tissue and for displaying tissue information

Granted: December 26, 2023
Patent Number: 11850004
A system and method for performing a teleoperational medical procedure is provided. In an example, a medical system includes an imaging instrument, a processor coupled to the imaging instrument, and a non-transitory computer memory coupled to the processor. The non-transitory computer memory stores machine-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: receive, from the imaging instrument, an image of a patient anatomy, wherein the patient anatomy includes a tissue…

Modified animal organs for use in surgical simulators

Granted: December 19, 2023
Patent Number: 11847932
Modified animal tissues, organs, and organ systems for use in simulated surgical procedures are disclosed. The tissues, organs, and/or organ systems can be modified by enhancing their electrical conductivity, by including simulated contents mimicking what would normally be present in live animals, and by having fake blood perfusing through them. Portions of different tissues, organs, or organ systems, which can be from the same or different animals, can be adhered to provide…

Training users using indexed to motion pictures

Granted: December 19, 2023
Patent Number: 11847936
A system includes a sensor to sense a change in a position of an input control component and a tool; a storage medium embodies a collection of respective motion pictures, which show tool movement imparted by the control component in response to manual input provided by users, indexed based upon a metric; a storage medium embodies a set of instructions that cause a processor to perform operations comprising: determining a user's performance; recording a motion picture of the tool movement…

Apparatus and method for registering images in real-time

Granted: December 12, 2023
Patent Number: 11842503
The invention relates to a device for superimposing known patterns, characteristic of a region, on (real) images of said region. The device comprises, a memory in which patterns are stored, which are representative of a selected region, of known position and orientation with relation to a common reference and processing means, for determining a pattern representative of the selected portion in the memory, on receipt of the designation of at least one portion of an observed image of the…

Surgical platform supported by multiple arms

Granted: December 5, 2023
Patent Number: 11832911
A surgical module is supported by manipulators that are removably attached to the surgical module. The surgical module may enable operation of surgical tools by providing an integration between actuating mechanisms of the manipulators and actuating mechanisms of the surgical tools. Alternatively or additionally, the surgical module may enable operation of the surgical tools by providing physical access for deploying surgical tools that are operatively connected to the manipulators.

Systems and methods for operating an end effector

Granted: December 5, 2023
Patent Number: 11832900
Systems and methods for operating an end effector include an end effector for grasping a material, a drive system coupled to the end effector, and a processor. The processor is configured to use the drive system to grasp a material using the end effector, determine a grasping separation parameter of the end effector, determine, based on the determined grasping separation parameter, a prediction of success or failure in configuring the end effector for firing a staple through the…

Systems and methods for fault reaction mechanisms for medical robotic systems

Granted: December 5, 2023
Patent Number: 11832891
A medical robotic system includes a control system and a manipulator assembly including actuators to manipulate a flexible elongate body, including a rotation actuator to bend the flexible elongate body. The control system is configured to perform: determining an operational state of the system; detecting a fault in one or more components of the system; classifying the fault with one or more classifications of a plurality of classifications according to heuristics; and imposing a fault…

Methods and apparatus to determine a twist parameter and/or a bend angle associated with a multi-core fiber

Granted: November 28, 2023
Patent Number: 11828586
A multi-core fiber includes multiple optical cores, and for each different core of a set of different cores of the multiple optical cores, a total change in optical length is detected. The total change in optical length represents an accumulation of all changes in optical length for multiple segments of that different core up to a point on the multi-core fiber. A difference is determined between the total changes in optical length for cores of the set of different cores. A twist…

Systems and methods for safe operation of a device

Granted: November 28, 2023
Patent Number: 11826017
Systems and methods for safe operation of a device include a control system having a memory and a processor coupled to the memory. The processor is configured to determine, using one or more sensors, whether an operator is in contact with an input control of a console coupled to the system. The processor is further configured to affect commanded motion of the device using the input control in response to the determination of operator contact with the input control. In some embodiments,…

Methods and apparatus for efficient purging

Granted: November 21, 2023
Patent Number: 11819190
A tissue visualization system comprises a flexible elongate shaft through which a lumen extends. The system also comprises a pliable visualization device coupled to a distal portion of the flexible elongate shaft. The pliable visualization device includes a chamber configured to receive a fluid. The system also comprises a piercing instrument configured to extend through the lumen and to penetrate a surface of the pliable visualization device.

Systems and methods for onscreen menus in a teleoperational medical system

Granted: November 21, 2023
Patent Number: 11819301
A teleoperational medical system comprises a teleoperational assembly including an operator control system, a first teleoperational manipulator, a first medical instrument, and a processing unit including one or more processors. The first teleoperational manipulators is configured for operation by an operator control device of the operator control system. The first teleoperational manipulator is configured to control the operation of the first medical instrument in a surgical…

Graphical user interface for displaying guidance information during an image-guided procedure

Granted: November 21, 2023
Patent Number: 11819284
A method for displaying guidance information during an image-guided medical procedure includes receiving, by one or more hardware processors, data from a tracking system associated with an elongate device comprising a flexible body, calculating a bend radius along a length of the flexible body, determining supplemental guidance information that includes an indication of whether the bend radius is less than a minimum allowable bend radius, augmenting images with the supplemental guidance…