Titan Medical Inc (TMDIF)

[investinthefuture]

A NEW PATENT to start of 2015!

#8,930,027 B2 - Force Feedback System - Granted 6 January 2015
(click link above to view)

In my personal and humble opinion (i.e. do your own homework on this!) this is a rather broad patent covering the implementation of a force feedback system in a surgical robot. I noticed while reading the patent that the author was careful to describe not just the SPORT system with its corresponding force-feedback hand controller, but ANY system that implements a processor and controller that converts forces on a robotic end effector into feedback on a hand controller.

Particularly interesting are lines 50-60 in section 4 on page 9:
http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=9&docid=08930027

The robotic hand controller (100) can provide force feedback to the surgeon in all the available eight degrees of freedom (8DOF), as described above, when operated in conjunction with a commercial off the shelf (COTS) device. The COTS device is either a robotic arm or a total MIS set-up where the improved robotic hand controller (100) of the present invention replaces the existing hand controller.

(note, the boldface emphasis above is mine, not in the original patent, and is meant only to highlight the question I'm about to ask)


So with that in mind, does this mean Titan now has Intuitive Surgical over a barrel on implementing a force-feedback hand controller into daVinci? Personally I think this particular patent is a big deal, but what do you all think?


SIDE NOTE: I've been reading the board about once a week after putting my shares on cruise control after the change in plans back in November. I saw a couple of posts asking where I was and accusing me of bailing on the board, but frankly I was just waiting on something interesting to report. To me, arm waving on an anonymous message board is kind of useless...posting potentially lucrative patents, not so much...