Patent ID: 8551143

Claim:
A bone plating system comprising: a plate, where the plate is low-profile and capable of contouring to a bone; at least one channel or tunnel through the plate; at least one flexible device passing through the channel or tunnel and capable of passing through soft tissue attached to the bone, where the at least one flexible device does not surround the bone; the bone is a patella; soft tissue extends upward from the patella and downward from the patella or encircles the patella; the plate is generally X-shaped, such that the plate has two arms extending generally upward and two arms extending generally downward; the at least one channel or tunnel passes through each of the two arms extending generally upward from the plate and each of the two arms extending generally downward from the plate; the flexible device passes through the channel or tunnel in each of the two arms extending generally upward such that the flexible device is capable of passing through the soft tissue extending upward from the patella; and a second flexible device passes through the channel or tunnel in each of the two arms extending generally downward such that the flexible device is capable of passing through the soft tissue extending downward from the patella.