U.S. Patent 8056787 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2011-11-15 and describes a “Surgical stapling and cutting instrument with travel-indicating retraction member.” This patent has been cited 354 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 procedures incorporates a handle that produces separate closing and firing motions to actuate an end effector. In particular, the handle produces multiple firing strokes in order to reduce the required amount of force required to fire (i.e., staple and sever) the end effector. A linked transmission reduces the required handle longitudinal length, yet achieves a rigid, strong configuration when straightened for firing. A traction biased firing mechanism avoids binding in driving this straightened linked rack. The instrument further has a manually actuatable retraction system that does not require the use of additional springs or other mechanisms to generate retraction forces which must be overcome when generating the forces necessary to fire the device. In various embodiments, the retraction system provides a visual indication to the surgeon as to how far firing has progressed. Link: U.S. Patent 8056787

This patent was originally filed on 2007-03-28 which gives it a processing time of 1693 days, compared to an average processing time of 1226 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Chad P. Boudreaux of Cincinnati, OH. The assistant examiner was Gloria R. Weeks.

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