U.S. Patent 8464923 was awarded to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. on 2013-06-18 and describes a “Surgical stapling devices for forming staples with different formed heights.” This patent has been cited 253 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 staple cartridge for use with a stapling device that has an actuator that is selectively actuatable in an axial direction and an anvil portion that is selectively movable between open and closed positions is disclosed. Various embodiments of the present invention include a cartridge body that movably supports first and second staple drivers. The staple drivers each support a staple thereon and serve to drive the staples into forming contact with the anvil upon actuation by the actuator. The various embodiments of the present invention enable the final formed heights of the staples to be varied without the need to use different sizes of staples. Link: U.S. Patent 8464923

This patent was originally filed on 2010-01-28 which gives it a processing time of 1237 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 Frederick E. Shelton, IV of Hillsboro, OR. The assistant examiner was Nathaniel Chukwurah.

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