U.S. Patent 7658311 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2010-02-09 and describes a “Surgical stapling instrument with a geared return mechanism.” This patent has been cited 576 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. The firing drive can include a pawl which can be selectively engaged with the firing member in order to advance the firing member, wherein the pawl can be disengaged from the firing member when the reversing drive is engaged with the firing member. The reversing drive can include a gear train having a first gear operably engaged with the firing member and, in addition, a second gear operably engaged with the first gear, wherein the second gear can be selectively operable with the trigger such that an actuation of the trigger can retract the firing member and/or cutting element via the first and second gears. Link: U.S. Patent 7658311

This patent was originally filed on 2008-01-10 which gives it a processing time of 761 days, compared to an average processing time of 1097 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 Scott A. Smith.

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