U.S. Patent 7717312 was awarded to Tyco Healthcare Group LP on 2010-05-18 and describes a “Surgical instruments employing sensors.” This patent has been cited 478 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:

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a surgical instrument for operating on tissue is provided. The surgical instrument includes an end effector including a first tissue engaging member and a second tissue engaging member in juxtaposed relation to the first tissue engaging member; a gap determination element operatively associated with each of the first tissue engaging member and the second tissue engaging member for measuring a gap distance between the first tissue engaging member and the second tissue engaging member; and a tissue contact determining element operatively associated with a respective tissue contacting surface of at least one of the first tissue engaging member and the second tissue engaging member. The present disclosure also relates to methods of using the surgical instrument. Link: U.S. Patent 7717312

This patent was originally filed on 2006-05-31 which gives it a processing time of 1448 days, compared to an average processing time of 1218 in the field. Tyco Healthcare Group LP has 1168 total patents. The first named inventor is Robert J. Beetel, III of Redwood City, CA. The primary examiner was Scott A. Smith.

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