U.S. Patent 8220468 was awarded to Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc. on 2012-07-17 and describes a “Sterile drape interface for robotic surgical instrument.” This patent has been cited 259 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 robotic surgical system includes a sterile surgical instrument, a robotic surgical manipulator, and a sterile drape covering at least a portion of the robotic surgical manipulator. The surgical instrument has a proximal interface and a distal end effector. The proximal interface includes a gimbal assembly with two intersecting rotational axes coupled to the distal end effector. The robotic surgical manipulator has a drive plate that bears against the gimbal assembly. The drive plate has two degrees of rotational freedom about a center of motion that is coincident with an intersection of the axes of the gimbal assembly. The sterile drape includes a sterile sheet covers at least a portion of the robotic surgical manipulator, a frame bonded to the sterile sheet, an instrument interface that covers the drive plate of the robotic surgical manipulator, and a diaphragm that connects the instrument interface to the frame. Link: U.S. Patent 8220468

This patent was originally filed on 2011-01-11 which gives it a processing time of 553 days, compared to an average processing time of 961 in the field. Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc. has 692 total patents. The first named inventor is Thomas G. Cooper of Menlo Park, CA. The primary examiner was Patricia Bianco.

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