Medtronic Navigation, Inc.

Medtronic Xomed, Inc.

Joseph Thomas Cilke

Andrew Wald

Jerald Lamont Redmond

Joseph Moctezuma

Shai Ronen

Victor D Snyder

Justin Kemp

Nikhil Mahendra

Craig Drager

Wei-Shyang Yang

Brad Jacobsen

Andrew Bzostek

Bruce M Burg

Brandon Merkl

Vince J Doerr

Abhishek Jain

Orey G Block

A system and apparatus is disclosed to automatically determine the identification and selected information relating to instruments. The identification information may be read or determined by various reader systems and then transferred for various purposes. The identification information may be stored on the instrument with a storage system or printing and/or recalled from a memory once the identification is made.

Automatic identification of instruments

A surgical instrument is disclosed having an elongated body portion having a proximal end and a distal end. The body portion is formed from a plastically deformable material such that the body portion can be bent between the proximal and distal ends from a first configuration to a second bent configuration and maintains the bent configuration. A flexible circuit having at least a pair of lead wires disposed around the body portion. The pair of lead wires are configured to conform to the bent configuration of the body portion such that they do not break during bending of the body portion. A tracking device adapted to cooperate with a navigation system to track the distal end of the instrument is coupled to the flexible circuit.

Flexible circuit sheet

Growing community of inventors

Broomfield, CO, United States of America

Joseph Thomas Cilke