U.S. Patent 8360296 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2013-01-29 and describes a “Surgical stapling head assembly with firing lockout for a surgical stapler.” This patent has been cited 282 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 stapling head is provided that may comprise a staple cartridge for supporting one or more staples, a core movable relative to the staple cartridge, at least one staple driver extending from the core, and a casing configured to at least partially hold the staple cartridge and movably receive the core and the staple driver(s). The casing may further comprise at least one retention member that is configured to move from a first position to a second position when sufficient external force is applied to the retention member, such as that provided by a shaft of a surgical stapler during insertion of the stapling head assembly into the shaft. When the retention member(s) are at the second position, the staple driver(s) may be prevented from driving staples from the staple cartridge, thereby providing a firing lockout feature to the stapling head assembly during insertion into at least a portion of a surgical stapler. Link: U.S. Patent 8360296

This patent was originally filed on 2010-09-09 which gives it a processing time of 873 days, compared to an average processing time of 983 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Aron O. Zingman of Cambridge, MA. The primary examiner was Scott A. Smith.

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