U.S. Patent 7988026 was awarded to Cardica, Inc. on 2011-08-02 and describes a “Endocutter with staple feed.” This patent has been cited 299 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 endocutter may include an end effector, at least one feeder belt that extends at least partially into the end effector; and two or more staples, where each staple has a first end frangibly connected to a corresponding feeder belt and a second, free end, and where the staples form at least one row. The endocutter may be used to treat a patient by inserting the end effector into the body of a patient through an opening such as a trocar port, engaging tissue with the end effector, stapling tissue along two staple lines with the end effector; cutting tissue between the staple lines with the end effector, releasing the tissue from the end effector, and repeating the holding, stapling and engaging on tissue at a different location within the body of the patient without removing the end effector from within the body of the patient. Link: U.S. Patent 7988026

This patent was originally filed on 2007-09-06 which gives it a processing time of 1426 days, compared to an average processing time of 1226 in the field. Cardica, Inc. has 179 total patents. The first named inventor is Bryan D. Knodel of Flagstaff, AZ. The primary examiner was Lindsay Low.

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