U.S. Patent 8333313 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2012-12-18 and describes a “Surgical stapling instrument with a firing member return mechanism.” This patent has been cited 307 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 instrument including a firing drive configured to selectively advance a firing member and/or cutting member relative to an end effector and, in addition, a reversing drive configured to selectively retract the firing member and/or cutting member relative to the end effector. Link: U.S. Patent 8333313

This patent was originally filed on 2011-06-03 which gives it a processing time of 564 days, compared to an average processing time of 837 in the field. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. has 2128 total patents. The first named inventor is Chad P. Boudreaux of Cincinnati, OH. The primary examiner was Brian D Nash.

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