Titan Medical Inc., which has been developing the Sport surgical robot, this week announced that it has received two U.S. patents. One is for methods for positioning a camera during a surgical procedure, and the other covers a gesture-control system. The Toronto-based company said its global intellectual property portfolio now includes 58 issued patents and 84 patent applications. It said it expects to be issued 17 other patents in the coming months.

Sport is a single-port robotic system for minimally invasive surgery. It consists of a surgeon-controlled patient cart with a dual-view camera system and 3D and 2D high-definition vision systems and multi-articulating instruments. Sport also includes a surgeon workstation that provides an ergonomic interface to the patient cart and a 3D high-definition endoscopic view of the procedure. The company said it plans to initially pursue gynecologic surgeries.

After pausing development last November because of fundraising challenges, Titan Medical partnered with Medtronic PLC and resumed work this past summer.

Sport maker patents vision, hand controls

U.S. Patent No. 10,772,703, titled “Methods and apparatuses for positioning a camera of a surgical robotic system to capture images inside a body cavity of a patient during a medical procedure,” is directed at the autonomous positioning of a camera in response to the location of a surgical instrument.

The second patent, No. 10,758,311, titled “Hand controller apparatus for gesture control and shared input control in a robotic surgery system,” is for a novel robotic hand controller with an integrated gesture-control pad used to control one or more robotic functions, including a camera.

Titan Medical said the notices of allowance cover various aspects of robotic surgery instrumentation, autonomous error correction, imaging sensors, visual illumination, graphical user interfaces, and sterile barriers. It also said they include a range of countries and regions including the U.S., Europe, China, Japan, Australia, and Canada.

“I commend Jasminder Brar, our vice president of legal, IP, and strategic initiatives, for his leadership and foresight in formulating an intellectual property strategy that continues to create significant value for Titan’s stakeholders,” stated David McNally, president and CEO of Titan Medical. “As evidenced by our recent strategic announcements, intellectual property is fundamental to Titan’s success, providing a foundation to product commercialization, mitigating against certain risks, protecting the company’s innovations and facilitating value creation.”

“While we are always excited to obtain new patents and allowances, the issuance of these recent patents is especially exciting, as they relate to human-machine interaction, an area where we have paid special attention in advancing the ergonomic friendliness of medical robotics based on feedback from surgeons,” McNally said.

Editor’s note: For more information on medical devices, visit MassDevice.com, a sibling site to The Robot Report.