U.S. Patent 8479969 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2013-07-09 and describes a “Drive interface for operably coupling a manipulatable surgical tool to a robot.” 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 surgical instrument for use with a robotic system that has a control unit and a shaft portion that includes an electrically conductive elongated member that is attached to a portion of the robotic system. The elongated member is configured to transmit control motions from the robotic system to an end effector. Link: U.S. Patent 8479969

This patent was originally filed on 2012-02-09 which gives it a processing time of 516 days, compared to an average processing time of 575 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Frederick E. Shelton, IV of Hillsboro, OR. The primary examiner was Brian D Nash.

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