U.S. Patent 8308040 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2012-11-13 and describes a “Surgical stapling instrument with an articulatable end effector.” This patent has been cited 284 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 can comprise a channel configured to support a staple cartridge and, in addition, an anvil pivotable between open and closed positions relative to the channel. The surgical instrument can further comprise a cutting member configured to incise tissue positioned captured between the staple cartridge and the anvil and, in addition, means for stopping the cutting member prior to a distal end datum, wherein the distal end datum can be defined by the distal-most staple cavity in the staple cartridge. In such embodiments, the incision within the tissue may not extend beyond the portion of the tissue that has been stapled. Link: U.S. Patent 8308040

This patent was originally filed on 2010-04-22 which gives it a processing time of 936 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 David B. Smith of Mason, OH. The primary examiner was Brian D Nash.

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