US Patent Issued to Covidien on July 7 for "Surgical stapling device with safety member" (Chinese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,672,872, issued on July 7, was assigned to Covidien LP (Mansfield, Mass.).

"Surgical stapling device with safety member" was invented by Chirong Liu (Shanghai).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A safety member (100) for use with an open, linear stapling device (10) includes a body (102) that can be received within a central knife slot (72) of a staple cartridge (18) and includes a knife stop (104), an angled stop surface (106), and transverse protrusions (108). The knife stop (104) is positioned on the body (102) to engage a knife assembly (50) of the staple cartridge (18), and the angled stop surface (106) is positioned to engage an actuatio...