US Patent Issued to Cilag GmbH International on Sept. 30 for "Surgical instruments with articulating shafts" (Ohio, South Carolina Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,426,913, issued on Sept. 30, was assigned to Cilag GmbH International (Zug, Switzerland).

"Surgical instruments with articulating shafts" was invented by Foster B. Stulen (Johns Island, S.C.), Zhifan F. Huang (Mason, Ohio), Patrick A. Weizman (Liberty Township, Ohio), Steven P. Smolik (West Chester, Ohio) and Carl J. Draginoff Jr. (Mason, Ohio).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Various embodiments are directed to articulatable surgical instruments. Some embodiments comprise an end effector to treat tissue, where the end effector comprises an ultrasonic blade. A hollow shaft may extend proximally from the end effector along a longitudinal ax...