U.S. Patent 7922061 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2011-04-12 and describes a “Surgical instrument with automatically reconfigurable articulating end effector.” This patent has been cited 482 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, such as a surgical cutting and fastening instrument, with an automatically articulatable end effector. The surgical instrument may comprise an end effector, a shaft, and an articulatable joint assembly connected between the end effector and the shaft. The joint assembly comprises at least one motor for articulating the end effector relative to the shaft. The joint assembly comprises at least one articulation sensor for sensing articulation of the end effector relative to the shaft. The instrument further comprises a control unit in communication with the articulation sensor and the motor. The control unit comprises at least one memory unit for storing articulation data from the at least one articulation sensor. When activated, the control unit sends control signals to the motor of the joint assembly to articulate automatically the end effector to a desired position based on the articulation data from the articulation sensor that is stored in the memory unit of the control unit. Link: U.S. Patent 7922061

This patent was originally filed on 2008-05-21 which gives it a processing time of 1056 days, compared to an average processing time of 1097 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is David C. Yates of Westchester, IL. The primary examiner was Paul R Durand.

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