U.S. Patent 7810692 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2010-10-12 and describes a “Disposable loading unit with firing indicator.” This patent has been cited 442 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 disposable loading unit for operable attachment to a surgical stapling apparatus. The disposable loading unit may have a carrier that supports a staple cartridge therein, an anvil assembly that is movably coupled to the carrier, and an axial drive assembly that is constructed to move in a distal direction from a start position to an end position through the staple cartridge in response to a drive motion imparted to the axial drive assembly from the surgical stapling apparatus. A firing indicator is provided on at least one of the anvil assembly and housing for indicating a position of the axial drive assembly as the axial drive assembly is driven from the start position to the end position. Link: U.S. Patent 7810692

This patent was originally filed on 2008-02-14 which gives it a processing time of 971 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 Jeffrey D. Messerly of Cincinnati, OH. The primary examiner was Scott A. Smith.

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