Recently, my colleagues Colin Kelly, Caroline Gieser, Michael Polatsek, and I thought about the role that additive manufacturing (3D-printing) is playing in today’s brave new world. As COVID-19 continues to cause critical manufacturing shortages while also increasing demand
Death and taxes are unavoidable. And if you create a popular product, so too are product liability lawsuits. In my practice, companies sometimes ask, “How soon after our surgical robot hits the market will we get sued?”
As more and more surgical robots make their way into operating rooms, companies are learning valuable lessons about how their devices function in the real world. Though many existing design features are proving highly effective, physician response suggests that current
Over the last decade, robotics have revolutionized healthcare. Surgical robots are rapidly making their way into many of our nation’s operating rooms, and are being used in a wide variety of surgeries ranging from gynecological to ocular procedures. Their popularity
As I noted last month, surgeon training is one of the issues that was debated in the various product liability lawsuits that were filed against Intuitive Surgical in recent years. This begs the question: How much training should a
Though a number of companies manufacture and sell surgical robots in the United States, Intuitive Surgical has been the primary target of product liability lawsuits in recent years. Around 100 such claims have already been filed and at least 700
It’s not hard to imagine a time in the not-too-distant future when physicians start using 3-D printing technology to produce tools for their robotic surgery systems that are based on existing copyrighted models but customized to address patient-specific needs. But what
In January, I posted regarding the impact of the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Aubin v. Union Carbide Corp., 177 So. 3d 489 (Fla. 2015). In that post I explained that even after Aubin, the consumer expectations test should
