U.S. Patent 8020743 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2011-09-20 and describes a “Powered articulatable surgical cutting and fastening instrument with flexible drive member.” This patent has been cited 404 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 cutting and fastening instrument is disclosed. According to various embodiments, the instrument may include a handle assembly that has an elongate shaft attached thereto. An end effector that is configured to support a staple cartridge may be pivotally coupled to the elongate shaft. The handle assembly may support a generator of rotary motion that interfaces with a rotary drive system that may include a flexible drive shaft. The flexible drive shaft may be configured to impart a driving motion to a knife supporting assembly supported within the end effector. Such arrangement enables the end effector to be fired while being articulated relative to the elongate shaft. Link: U.S. Patent 8020743

This patent was originally filed on 2008-10-15 which gives it a processing time of 1070 days, compared to an average processing time of 1097 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 Lindsay Low.

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