U.S. Patent 8348130 was awarded to Covidien LP on 2013-01-08 and describes a “Surgical apparatus including surgical buttress.” This patent has been cited 303 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 buttress for use with a surgical stapling apparatus having a first jaw in the form of an anvil assembly and a second jaw configured to selectively receive a staple cartridge assembly. The surgical buttress includes a first body portion and a second body portion. The first body portion substantially overlies a portion of a plurality of fastener slots of the staple cartridge assembly. The staple cartridge assembly is removably operably couplable to the second jaw of the surgical stapling apparatus. The second body portion extends from the first body portion and is configured and dimensioned to be removably positioned to substantially overlie a portion of a plurality of fastener pockets of the anvil assembly of the surgical stapling apparatus when the staple cartridge assembly is operably coupled to the second jaw of the surgical stapling apparatus. Link: U.S. Patent 8348130

This patent was originally filed on 2010-12-10 which gives it a processing time of 760 days, compared to an average processing time of 983 in the field. Covidien LP has 3582 total patents. The first named inventor is Richard I. Simpson of Hamden, CT. The assistant examiner was Nathaniel Chukwurah.

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