U.S. Patent 8172124 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2012-05-08 and describes a “Surgical instrument having recording capabilities.” This patent has been cited 335 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. The surgical instrument has an end effector and a trigger in communication with the end effector. The surgical instrument also has a first sensor and an externally accessible memory device in communication with the first sensor. The first sensor has an output that represents a first condition of either the trigger or the end effector. The memory device is configured to record the output of the first sensor. In various embodiments, memory device may include an output port and/or a removable storage medium. Link: U.S. Patent 8172124

This patent was originally filed on 2011-02-04 which gives it a processing time of 459 days, compared to an average processing time of 837 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Eugene L. Timperman of Cincinnati, OH. The primary examiner was Brian D Nash.

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