U.S. Patent 7784662 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2010-08-31 and describes a “Surgical instrument with articulating shaft with single pivot closure and double pivot frame ground.” This patent has been cited 532 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 stapling and severing instrument particularly suited to endoscopic use includes a proximal portion that is manipulated external to a patient to position an attached elongate shaft and end effector to a desired surgical site inside of the patient. An articulation joint pivotally attaches the end effector to the elongate shaft to give further clinical flexibility in reaching tissue at a desired angle. A closure tube assembly includes a single pivoting portion that overrides the articulation joint in order to distally translate to the end effector to close, yet pass over an articulated shaft by having a multiple pivot frame ground encompassed therein to accommodate the longitudinal change in closure sleeve pivot. Thereby, additional clinical flexibility in positioning the end effector is achieved without losing the ability for separate closure and firing motions transferred by the shaft. Link: U.S. Patent 7784662

This patent was originally filed on 2005-04-07 which gives it a processing time of 1972 days, compared to an average processing time of 1244 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Kenneth S. Wales of Mason, OH. The assistant examiner was Erin Colello.

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