U.S. Patent 7771396 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2010-08-10 and describes a “Intubation device for enteral feeding.” This patent has been cited 275 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:

An intubation device is provided for use with a guide apparatus having a track that is adapted to be associated with an endoscope such that bending of the track is substantially decoupled from bending of the endoscope. The intubation device includes an elongated, flexible tube and a mating member attached to the tube and adapted to slidingly engage the track external of the endoscope. The intubation device further includes a tissue bolster disposed on the proximal portion of the tube and changeable between a collapsed and an expanded configuration. The tube is positionable inside the upper gastrointestinal tract of a patient such that the proximal end of the tube is externalized through the gastric and abdominal walls of the patient, and wherein the tissue bolster is securable against the inner gastric wall when the tissue bolster is in the expanded configuration. Link: U.S. Patent 7771396

This patent was originally filed on 2006-03-22 which gives it a processing time of 1602 days, compared to an average processing time of 1792 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is David Stefanchik of Morrow, OH. The assistant examiner was Clinton Ostrup.

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