U.S. Patent 7721934 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2010-05-25 and describes a “Articulatable drive shaft arrangements for surgical cutting and fastening instruments.” This patent has been cited 373 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 surgical cutting and fastening instrument is disclosed. According to various embodiments, the instrument includes an end effector comprising a moveable cutting instrument. The instrument also includes a main drive shaft assembly for actuating the cutting instrument in the end effector. The instrument also includes a handle comprising a gear drive train connected to the main drive shaft assembly, a motor for actuating the gear drive train, a closure trigger for causing the end effector to clamp an object positioned in the end effector when the closure trigger is retracted, and a firing trigger separate from the closure trigger for actuating the motor when the firing trigger is retracted. The instrument further comprises means for articulating the end effector. Link: U.S. Patent 7721934

This patent was originally filed on 2007-05-30 which gives it a processing time of 1091 days, compared to an average processing time of 1226 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Frederick E. Shelton, IV of Hillsboro, OR. The assistant examiner was Lindsay Low.

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