U.S. Patent 8136712 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2012-03-20 and describes a “Surgical stapler with discrete staple height adjustment and tactile feedback.” This patent has been cited 364 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:

In various embodiments, a surgical stapler is provided that may comprise a body, a stapling head operably coupled to the body, an anvil movably supported relative to the stapling head for selective travel toward and away from the stapling head, and an anvil adjustment shaft supported by the body for selectively adjusting a position of the anvil relative to the stapling head. The adjustment shaft and/or the body may be configured to establish at least one predetermined staple forming height between the anvil and the stapling head irrespective of adjustment shaft rotation. Additionally, the adjustment shaft and/or the body may be configured to provide tactile feedback to a user rotating the anvil adjustment shaft, thereby providing the user of an indication of when an appropriate staple forming height has been reached. Various integrations of components described herein may also reduce the part count required for a surgical stapler, thereby reducing assembly time and manufacturing cost. Link: U.S. Patent 8136712

This patent was originally filed on 2009-12-10 which gives it a processing time of 831 days, compared to an average processing time of 1080 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Aron O. Zingman of Cambridge, MA. The assistant examiner was Robert Long.

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