U.S. Patent 8016176 was awarded to Tyco Healthcare Group LP on 2011-09-13 and describes a “Surgical stapling instrument with independent sequential firing.” This patent has been cited 255 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:

An end effector for a surgical fastener applying instrument including a first jaw member and a second jaw member. The second jaw member includes first and second cartridges each containing a plurality of surgical fasteners, wherein each of the first and second cartridges is configured to move independently with respect to the first jaw member between a proximal position and a distal. Link: U.S. Patent 8016176

This patent was originally filed on 2009-04-27 which gives it a processing time of 869 days, compared to an average processing time of 1080 in the field. Tyco Healthcare Group LP has 1168 total patents. The first named inventor is David M. Farascioni of Bethel, MN. The primary examiner was Scott A. Smith.

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