U.S. Patent 7738971 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2010-06-15 and describes a “Post-sterilization programming of surgical instruments.” This patent has been cited 444 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 with a programmable control unit and methods for programming the control unit while the surgical instrument is in a sterile container. The method may comprise packaging the surgical instrument in the container and then sterilizing the surgical instrument while the surgical instrument is in the container. The method may further comprise programming the surgical instrument while the surgical instrument is in the container with a programming device positioned outside of the container. Link: U.S. Patent 7738971

This patent was originally filed on 2007-01-10 which gives it a processing time of 1252 days, compared to an average processing time of 1425 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Jeffrey S. Swayze of Hamilton, MI. The primary examiner was Ramesh B Patel.

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