U.S. Patent 8322589 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2012-12-04 and describes a “Surgical stapling instruments.” This patent has been cited 285 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 shaft, an end effector movable relative to the shaft, a locking mechanism configured to engage the shaft and/or end effector to fix the relative relationship between the shaft and end effector, and a closure system configured to close the end effector and engage the locking mechanism to prevent it from becoming unlocked. The instrument can further include a firing drive comprising a trigger, a firing member, and a pawl, where the pawl is rotatable between a first position in which the pawl is disengaged from the firing member and a second position in which the trigger can advance the pawl and firing member toward the end effector. The instrument can also include a reel, a band, where the band can be wound around the reel to retract the firing member, and a return mechanism for selectively engaging the trigger with the firing member and the reel. Link: U.S. Patent 8322589

This patent was originally filed on 2010-07-02 which gives it a processing time of 886 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 Chad P. Boudreaux of Cincinnati, OH. The primary examiner was Sameh H. Tawfik.

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