U.S. Patent 8161977 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2012-04-24 and describes a “Accessing data stored in a memory of a surgical instrument.” This patent has been cited 351 times by other U.S. patents which places it in the top 500 cited patents since 2010 according to our law firm research, and makes it of the most innovative medical technology patents in the field of instruments. The abstract states:

A process and system are disclosed for downloading sensor data, stored in a memory device of a surgical cutting and fastening instrument, to an external or remote computer device. The process may involve storing data from one or more sensors of a surgical cutting and fastening instrument in a memory device of a control unit of the surgical cutting and fastening instrument during a surgical procedure involving the surgical cutting and fastening instrument. Next, after the surgical procedure, a data link between the control unit and the remote computer device is established. Then, the sensor data can be downloaded from the control unit to the remote computer device. Link: U.S. Patent 8161977

This patent was originally filed on 2008-09-23 which gives it a processing time of 1309 days, compared to an average processing time of 1606 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is David C. Yates of Westchester, IL. The primary examiner was Brian D Nash.

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