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During product development, it’s not unusual to discover certain failure points in a surgical robot’s design. For example, certain components, like nuts or bolts or screws, may become brittle when exposed to various substances or gasses commonly found in operating rooms. Similarly, prolonged use may cause cables and wires to become overstressed. Such component degradation may result in unwanted changes in the robot’s movement patterns or even complete structural failure. Issues like these, if not immediately addressed during product development, can become low-hanging fruit for plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Continue Reading Defeat Design Defect Claims Before They’re Filed

Recently, an artificial intelligence-guided robot successfully performed a laparoscopic surgery to connect two ends of an intestine in four pigs, without any human intervention. And according to the researchers involved, the robot surgeon produced “significantly better” results than humans. Though such an accomplishment is astonishing and signals the inevitable rise of fully autonomous medical robots, it is important to remember that the results generated by artificial intelligence are only as good as the information used to train it.
Continue Reading The Risk of Clinical Data Collection Biases In Fully Autonomous Medical Robots

It’s no secret that defending against product liability lawsuits can be costly. But surgical robot manufacturers sometimes ask me to give them hard numbers. To read the tea leaves and estimate how much they’ll have to spend to resolve such claims. Unfortunately, the answer is hard to swallow.
Continue Reading Surgical Robots Risk Greater Legal Costs Than You May Think