U.S. Patent 7959051 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2011-06-14 and describes a “Closure systems for a surgical cutting and stapling instrument.” This patent has been cited 419 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 stapling instrument including an actuator configured to be retracted relative to the distal end of the disposable loading unit and rotate an anvil between an open position and a closed position. The actuator can include a cam, where the cam can include an arcuate profile having an apex configured to be in contact with the anvil when the anvil is in a closed position. In at least one such embodiment, the anvil can apply a clamping force to the soft tissue prior to the staples being deployed to prevent, or at least inhibit, soft tissue from flowing, or ‘milking’, out of the distal end of the disposable loading unit. In various embodiments, a surgical stapling instrument can include a disposable loading unit having an anvil which can be moved between open, closed, and/or collapsed positions to facilitate the insertion of the disposable loading unit through a trocar. Link: U.S. Patent 7959051

This patent was originally filed on 2008-02-15 which gives it a processing time of 1215 days, compared to an average processing time of 1097 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is William D. Kelly of Mason, MI. The assistant examiner was Lindsay Low.

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