U.S. Patent 8464925 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2013-06-18 and describes a “Methods and apparatus for delivering tissue treatment compositions to stapled tissue.” This patent has been cited 334 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 stapler includes first and second tissue clamping members and a reservoir configured to hold a tissue treatment composition. The first tissue clamping member is configured to receive a plurality of staples. The second tissue clamping member comprises an anvil configured to form the staples. The reservoir may be provided in a handle portion of the surgical stapler, and a fluid conduit may be used to communicate the tissue treatment composition from the reservoir. An end effector lumen may selectively communicate with the fluid conduit. The lumen may also be in communication with openings to further communicate the tissue treatment composition to tissue or to a scaffold material positioned adjacent to tissue. A reservoir may alternatively be provided in one of the clamping members. A knife member may pierce a housing defining the reservoir, and a resilient member may then urge a tissue treatment composition from the housing. Link: U.S. Patent 8464925

This patent was originally filed on 2010-05-11 which gives it a processing time of 1134 days, compared to an average processing time of 983 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Michael D. Cronin of Cincinnati, OH. The primary examiner was Robert Long.

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