U.S. Patent 8499993 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2013-08-06 and describes a “Surgical staple cartridge.” This patent has been cited 262 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 staple cartridge can comprise a cartridge housing having a longitudinal axis, the cartridge having a knife channel disposed along the longitudinal axis dividing the cartridge into a first side and a second side, a first, a second and a third row of staple pockets located on the first side of the cartridge housing having staples therein, wherein the first, the second and the third row of staple pockets are aligned parallel to the knife channel, a first fastener driver oriented to drive at least three fasteners out of the staple pockets in the first, the second and the third row of staple pockets, respectively, and a second fastener driver oriented to drive at least four fasteners out of the staple pockets in at least the second and third row of staple pockets, respectively. Link: U.S. Patent 8499993

This patent was originally filed on 2012-06-12 which gives it a processing time of 420 days, compared to an average processing time of 575 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Christopher J. Hess of Cincinnati, OH. The assistant examiner was Gloria R Weeks.

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