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US 5,630,268 AGranted
Process for manufacturing taper point surgical needles
AssigneeEthicon, Inc.
InventorsDaniel Smith, Bernard M. Willis, Kenneth P. Marschke, Jr., Barry Littlewood, Vulgens Schoen, Carl Gucker, Michael Nordmeyer, Thaddeus Miklewicz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process for manufacturing surgical needles from solid, cylindrical needle blanks. A plurality of needle blanks are cut from a roll of wire and mounted to a flat carrier strip. The carrier strip then indexes each needle blank to a grinding station where an orbital grinding means grinds the distal end of each needle blank into a taper point while the needle blanks are held fixed in the carrier strip.
Claims1
A method for manufacturing a taper point needle, comprising:
- mounting a plurality of solid, cylindrical surgical needle blanks to a carrier means wherein each needle blank has a distal end;
- and,
- moving each needle blank to a grinding means and grinding the distal end of the needle blank while maintaining the needle blank fixed in the carrier means to form a taper point.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.