U.S. Patent 7721931 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2010-05-25 and describes a “Prevention of cartridge reuse in a surgical instrument.” This patent has been cited 460 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 is disclosed. The surgical instrument includes a control unit and a staple cartridge including a transponder. The control unit is configured to transmit a first wireless signal to the transponder and to receive a second wireless signal from the transponder to determine one of a first electronic state and a second electronic state of the transponder based on the second wireless signal. Link: U.S. Patent 7721931

This patent was originally filed on 2007-01-10 which gives it a processing time of 1231 days, compared to an average processing time of 1226 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is James R. Giordano of Milford Charter Twp, MI. The primary examiner was Scott A. Smith.

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