THINK Surgical Brand Guidelines: From ROBODOC to the Handheld TMINI Knee Robot

An IBM and UC Davis project for hip replacement.

THINK Surgical’s story begins with ROBODOC, a robot built for hip replacement. English Wikipedia says ROBODOC was introduced in 1992 by Integrated Surgical Systems, working closely with IBM, and describes it as the first active robotic system to perform some of the surgical actions in a total hip replacement: it milled a precise fitting in the thigh bone for the implant, in place of the mallet and rasp traditionally used for the job.

The project’s earlier history is set out in a guide to the ROBODOC records at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, written by the archivist Alison Oswald and reproduced on the surgical-robotics blog SurgRob in July 2017. It says the work began in 1986 as a collaboration between IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center and researchers at the University of California, Davis, aimed at a surgical device for total hip arthroplasty, and that Integrated Surgical Systems was incorporated in 1990 to develop it. The guide compares the robot to a computer-controlled machine tool, milling bone for an accurate fit, and the blog adds that THINK Surgical had donated early ROBODOC prototypes to the Smithsonian.

Ownership changed in 2007. According to the Smithsonian guide, ROBODOC was sold that year to Novatrix Biomedical, which formed Curexo Medical to handle the purchase of Integrated Surgical Systems. By 2014 the business was trading as Curexo Technology Corporation, the name THINK Surgical said in December of that year it had just left behind.

TSolution One, then TMINI.

The new name was first shown to surgeons. THINK Surgical said in December 2014 that visitors to that year’s annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons had seen the first preview of the change from Curexo Technology Corporation to THINK Surgical, Inc., and it linked the change to a move from a device company to what it called an expanded surgical solution company. The Smithsonian guide also dates the change to 2014.

A new product name followed. On 8 December 2014, from Fremont, California, THINK Surgical announced FDA 510(k) clearance for the TSolution One Surgical System for total hip arthroplasty. The company described it as an active robotic system in two parts: the TPLAN 3D planning workstation, which builds a model of the patient’s anatomy from CT images so the surgeon can choose an implant and plan its fit, and the TCAT computer-assisted tool, which mills the bone to that plan under the surgeon’s direct control. It also said the system supported implants selected by the surgeon, an idea the company still builds on.

The next robot was much smaller. The TMINI Miniature Robotic System is a handheld, wireless robot for total knee replacement. In September 2023, shortly after it was cleared by the FDA, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers reported that THINK had designed it for that single procedure after long interviews with the people who would use it; one surgeon told the company that all he really needed was something that could put the pins in the right place. The device places guide pins on a plane planned in advance, and the ASME article compared it to a car’s lane assist, with the surgeon in charge of the larger movements and the timing. THINK’s engineers also built their own camera system and their own link between robot and camera, the article said.

On its website THINK describes TMINI as an open implant system, with CT-based 3D planning, an overhead tracking system and a TMINI PRO workflow for adjusting the planned implant position during the operation; those are the company’s own descriptions.

Surgical robotics and its record.

Surgical robotics companies sell machines that most people will never see in use, so their public image is built from a small set of scenes. The commonest is the operating theatre itself: robot arms draped and angled over a table, a console set a few steps away, and a surgical team in scrubs around them. When the BBC reported a new British surgical robot in 2018, one of its pictures showed a surgeon steering a robot from a console.

The second scene is the surgeon’s own view. Many systems give the surgeon a 3D screen or viewer and hand controls, and company photographs often show a surgeon leaning into that viewer or working the controls, sometimes beside a screen showing the magnified view inside the body. Close-ups of instruments follow: slim shafts, small jaws and wristed tips that bend and turn, shown at a scale no visitor to a hospital would normally see.

Clean product renders do much of the remaining work. Arms, carts and consoles are shown against plain white or soft grey grounds, with a restrained palette of whites, greys and a single brand colour, so that the machine reads as precise and calm. Museums have started to collect the results; in 2023 the Science Museum in London put a surgical robot arm on show in its Engineers gallery.

The industry meets at its own congresses. In North America, the annual meeting of SAGES, the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, is a regular venue for new systems; in Europe there is the annual congress of the EAES, the European Association for Endoscopic Surgery; and in London the Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics brings engineers and surgeons together. The companies in this guide range from established makers to closed ventures, and each guide sets out what can be checked about them.

An open platform and a distribution deal.

THINK Surgical sells to surgeons who use many different implants. The company describes itself as a privately held US business whose robots are open platforms, supporting implant brands from several manufacturers so that the surgeon drives the choice of implant. Alongside that open version, it supplies Zimmer Biomet with an exclusive version of TMINI that works with Zimmer Biomet’s Persona knee, under what the two companies call a Limited Exclusive Distribution and Supply Agreement; on 13 October 2026 they announced a multi-year extension of it.

The trade press has followed the adoption. ORTHOWORLD reported on 28 May 2026, from a company announcement, that TMINI had been used in its 5,000th total knee replacement, a year after the 1,000th, and that in February 2026 the system had gained compatibility with Stryker’s Triathlon knee. Chief executive Stuart Simpson, quoted there, credited new implant modules and the Zimmer Biomet partnership. The company’s leadership page says Simpson spent 24 years at Stryker, ending as president of joint replacement, and that its executive chairman, David C. Dvorak, was formerly chief executive of Zimmer Biomet.

The company remains based in Fremont. Its trademarks, as listed on its website, include TMINI, TMINI PRO, TPLAN, ID-HUB, THINK Surgical and the line “Thought provoking technology.” Its announcements write the name with THINK in capitals and Surgical in ordinary case.

For a design guide, THINK Surgical shows how a company can carry more than three decades of robot engineering under a new, short word name. Compare Stryker, whose Triathlon knee TMINI now supports, and Intuitive, the surgical-robot maker. For this guide we use a graphite, a signal orange and a warm white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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