A Brave New World of Surgery
Robotic surgery, also known as Robot-assisted surgery, is gaining notoriety in the healthcare industry due to its precision, dexterity, superior control, device multifunctionality, and ergonomic abilities. It allows surgeons to operate without hand tremors, which creates greater control in the operating room.
Recent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that robotic-assisted surgery is not only safer, but it also improves patient recovery time. What’s more, patients experience a fourfold reduction in the prevalence of blood clots, and a twofold reduction in chance of readmission. Robotic surgery is increasingly becoming synonymous with minimally invasive as it reduces downtime, scarring, and the chance of complications.
Mimicking the Surgeon’s Arms
Momentis Surgical is a surgical robotics company located in Israel and Florida. It specializes in robots for gynecological surgery but is quickly expanding to new markets as a potential solution for many other indications such as , trans-umbilical, transoral, transrectal and transcutaneous surgeries and procedures. They were named in Fast Companies prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2022.
The company’s developments are multi-disciplinary, involving mechanics (structure), electrical engineering (actuation) and software that controls the robotic arms. The software is in charge, among other things, of the translation between the controllers that are managed by the surgeon and the robotic arms that perform surgery within a patient.
Momentis is the first company to successfully perform gynecological surgery in a transvaginal approach rather than laparoscopic approach, meaning they don’t have to perform any incisions in the abdomen. Momentis’ robots are designed to mimic the configuration of the surgeon’s arm; it has a shoulder, elbow, and wrist segments, and is equipped with human dexterity, superhuman flexibility, and 360-degree articulation. It’s built to feel natural, and functions very similarly to the way you operate your own body. Momentis’ Anovo medical device is the only of its kind with FDA approval, granted in February 2021, and even created its own category within the FDA.
The Tip of the Innovation Iceberg
Yossi Rozhenko is the Intellectual Property (IP) Director at Momentis Surgical. In his role he’s responsible for taking the IP created by the engineers and building out the best protection strategy while simultaneously keeping Momentis from encroaching on other companies’ territory. To Rozhenko, having access to innovation and technology insights is “critical.”
Rozenkho describes IP with the likes of an iceberg, “the information you get out of patent literature is similar to the famous iceberg image, where you can see the tip above water (equivalent to what you see in the market) but most of the iceberg, or in this case information, is below the water.” Having access to as much innovation data as possible is invaluable to the Momentis team, and it allows the company to “strategically calculate steps when trying to understand where to expand innovation efforts and what to be wary of.”
Before PatSnap, Rozhenko relied on various other patent intelligence solutions, as well as open-source tools such as Google patents. He found that with other platforms, “you have to work a lot harder in order to get the results you need, even though they may have access to the same information, it is much more difficult and time consuming to obtain.”
Better Business Decisions
The reports provided in PatSnap Insights are also critical to Momentis’ workflow. Being visual in nature, Rozhenko can easily display and explain the likely value of a patent portfolio to upper management. He also uses the reports from PatSnap to maintain an understanding of the competitive landscape, which informs strategic business decisions.
The landscape tool allows Rozhenko to get a clearer visual understanding of the IP saturation in various fields and infer business insights about Momentis, as well as its competitors.
With PatSnap, Rozhenko can extract the insights he needs — especially with the smart image tool. “It enables you to quickly understand which numbers match to the respective descriptions in an invention and you can quickly understand how it works.”
Most importantly, PatSnap helps Rozhenko perform his job quicker and reduces errors. “Having access to the information I need, quickly and confidently, enables me to spend more time on my other work – instead of spending so much time on searching and prosecution drafting.”
Some of the key features enabling Momentis include:
- Insights. The various reports provided by PatSnap Insights module provide many of the analytics needed by the Momentis team, from competitive analysis to patent/portfolio valuations, and more.
- Semantic Search. When engineers have an idea for an invention, “semantic search enables quick analysis of the space to understand where there may be adjacent technologies and if they have freedom to operate.”
- Smart Image. Momentis uses the Smart Image tool the most. “It enables us to quickly see how a disclosed invention may function, and easily understand what parts of an invention are being referred to within the description.”
Most impressive to the Momentis team is PatSnap’s all-encompassing data. “PatSnap truly provides more than just a patent analysis tool.”
Additionally, Rozhenko is a big fan of PatSnap’s customer service. “I’ve never received better customer service — ever — from any software company. So, when I recommend PatSnap to colleagues, I note, ‘not only is it a great platform that is very convenient to use due to the sleek design, but they also have the best customer service.’”
