Patent ID: 8692140

Claim:
A surgical object and fluid monitoring system, comprising: a support ring for securely supporting a container with at least one port opening of the container being disposed for receiving surgical objects placed into the container through the at least one port opening with the aid of gravity; a hollow spine structure vertically oriented and comprising a channel with channel walls along the length of the hollow spine structure; a rod movably disposed in the channel within the hollow spine structure, the rod moveable along the channel; a weight force sensing device mechanically coupled to the rod, the support ring mechanically coupled to the rod, and the rod being in a moving arrangement that transfers weight force from the support ring to the weight force sensing device; a flexure mechanically coupled with the rod and the hollow spine structure, the flexure adding very little if any downward force onto the rod and thereby onto the weight force sensing device while maintaining the rod vertically aligned in the channel with an air gap separating the length of the rod from the channel walls, the air gap allowing the rod to move vertically without friction from contact with the channel walls while the rod in the channel is protected from impact by the channel walls; and a processor communicatively coupled with the weight force sensing device, wherein the processor, responsive to executing computer instructions, performs operations comprising: determining an incremental weight of the contents of the container from a surgical object placed into the container through the port opening, based at least on an information signal received from the weight force sensing device indicating a change in weight force sensed by the weight force sensing device contemporaneous with the placement of the surgical object into the container through the at least one port opening with the aid of gravity.