Ethicon, Gmbh

Harro Hofliger Verpackungsmaschinen Gmbh

Harro Hofliger

Konstantin K Ivanov

Robert J Cerwin

Clifford A Dey

Joseph Stanley Siernos

Donald Pompei

Mehmet Reyhan

William R Reinhardt

Martin Sobel

David A Szabo

Manfred Reiser

Robert Nunez

Marvin Alpern

Manfred Hild

J Mark Findlay

Jack Cascio

Erwin Bauder

John Rega

Delfin A Lorenzo Iglesias

Bernard Wachter

Thomas J Zingale

David D Demarest

Robert A Daniele

Robert B Duncan

William F Smith

Michael S Pohle

Andrew Chaloka

Shakti Routh

David Roslon

Alan Hughieson

Lorens Slokovic

Edgar Wieland

Roland Eissele

Jost Mucheyer

Haro Hofliger

James Lotze

Albert C Grosenbeck

Walter Bohringer

John M Findlay

Matthew E Krever

Bernhard Wachter

Jervis P Lynch

Rolf Grotehusmann

Raul Quinones

Bernhard Frey

An apparatus for inserting surgical needles in needle parks. The apparatus has a frame, a needle block slidably mounted to the frame, a shuttle member slidably mounted to the frame, and a pick-up head. The needle block has a plurality of guide members spaced apart to receive at least one surgical needle and at least one needle park. The apparatus is used in a method of automatically loading surgical needles into the needle parks of surgical suture packages.

Package winder inserter

A machine and method for loading surgical needles having attached sutures into a package. The machine has a rotating disk mounted to a frame. The disk has circumferential grooves for receiving a suture. The machine has a block slidably mounted to the machine for receiving a needle and transporting it to a motion device. The motion device moves the needle to a package on a packaging machine. Rotation of the package by the packaging machine causes the suture to move out of the grooves and into the package.

Automatic surgical needle and suture loading machine

A machine and process for packaging armed sutures into tray packages. The machine has a frame with a rotatable indexing disc member mounted to the top of the frame. A plurality of tool nests are rotatably mounted to the top of the indexing disc. Tray packages mounted in the toll nests are rotated to wind sutures into a suture channel in the packages. A stylus having a front nose member and a rear heel member guides suture into the suture channel. Channel winding pins in the winding tooling provide for an arranged wind of suture in a suture channel of the tray packages. The machine has an in-line printer and a punching machine for printing and punching paper covers from strips of stock material, which are then mounted to the tray packages.

Package winding machine

A machine and process for packaging armed sutures into tray packages. The machine has a frame with a rotatable indexing disc member mounted to the top of frame. A plurality of tool nests are rotatably mounted to the top of the indexing disc. Tray packages mounted in the tool nests are rotated to wind sutures into a suture channel in the packages. A stylus having a front nose member and a rear heel member guides suture into the suture channel.

Suture winding machine, suture tray package, and method of winding sutures

A package for sutures having a winding channel. The package has a base member and a cover member that is mounted to the base member. A plurality of cantilevered doors cover the winding channel.

Package for sutures

Automated packaging of surgical needle-suture assemblies includes a framing operation in which adjacent sheets of polymer coated aluminum foils are conveyed through a sequence of steps in an apparatus which produces frames containing plastic packets of needle-suture assemblies. A vision system having video cameras connected to a specially adapted computer enables monitoring the product traveling through the framing operation to detect various defects in the foil and in the product formation. Upon detection of a defect, the computer system can either identify and separate rejected product from good product or shut down the apparatus.

Method of and apparatus for detecting defects in a process for making

A package for sutures having a winding channel. The package has a base member and a cover member that is mounted to the base member. A plurality of cantilieverd doors cover the winding channel.

A process for applying a biobarrier member to a vent opening in a foil member used for medical device packaging. The process provides for cutting a biobarrier member from a roll of stock and sealing the biobarrier member about the vent opening in the foil member. The seal is tested for integrity and the biobarrier member is tested for porosity.

Process for microbial barrier vent to a foil package

A package for sterilized, absorbable medical devices is disclosed. The package has a plurality of cavities in communication with a vent, wherein the vent is preferably centrally located. After sterilization, the package is sealed adjacent to the vent thereby providing individual hermetically sealed sterile cavities which are cut away from the package to form unitary packages.

Microbial barrier vented package for sterile medical devices and method

A package for maintaining a needle-suture product in a sterile condition includes a peelable foil container in which a peripheral heat seal defines a cavity for retaining a suture packet. The packet has a plastic tray and a stiff paper lid secured to the tray by hinged paper cleats extending into sockets in the tray. The lid covers most of the area of the tray, leaving an uncovered portion for accessing a needle mounted in the tray. A suture attached to the needle is coiled in a peripheral track in the tray so that an extended length of suture material can be retained in a relatively small space. The container has top and bottom aluminum foils with differentiated polymeric coatings on their interior surfaces, which are thermally fused to form the seal. Unsealed foil flaps are provided at one end of the container to enable peeling apart the foils to open the package.

Surgical suture package with peelable foil heat seal

Automated packaging of surgical needle-suture assemblies includes a framing operation in which adjacent sheets of polymer coated aluminum foils are conveyed through a sequence of steps in an apparatus which produces frames containing plastic packets of needle-suture assemblies. The apparatus pulls a web of foil off a large diameter feed roll and maintains web alignment as it travels down line through the apparatus by a system that optically detects transverse movement of the web as it is fed into the apparatus and adjusts the position of the feed roll relative to the centerline of travel using a hi-directional stepper motor. Discontinuities in the polymer coating on the top surface of the web of foil are automatically detected so that remedial steps can be taken to avoid processing defective sections of the web. A vision system having video cameras connected to a specially adapted computer enables monitoring the product travelling through the apparatus to detect various defects in the product formation. Upon detection of a defect, the computer system can either identify and separate rejected product from good product or shut down the apparatus. A servo drive system enables rapid and controllable advancement of the web down line in the apparatus.

Apparatus for feeding foil stock in a process for making sealed sterile

A method for making sterile suture packages employs a frame assembly line, a sterilization line and a blanker/cartoner line. A web of foil is advanced in a series of movements through the frame assembly line to assemble a frame containing needle-suture assemblies in a plurality of cavities in the frame, the frame having top and bottom aluminum foils with heat seal coatings on their facing surfaces. The cavities are formed in the bottom foil of each frame by a combination of pressurized air and mechanical plugs which are forced against the bottom foil and an underlying die having recesses for defining the cavities. A blanking operation following sterilization and sealing separates individual packages, each containing one needle-suture assembly, from the frame. The packages are then conveyed by belts through inspection stations and reoriented for loading into shipping cartons.

Method for making sterile suture packages

The specification discloses an automated apparatus and method for packaging surgical needles having sutures attached thereto wherein a bundle of needles and sutures are placed at a semi-automated separation station and an operator feeds the needles, one at a time, into a rotating needle feed wheel. As the feed wheel advances, the suture is tensioned and directed along a pre-determined path to separate it from the remaining sutures in the bundle. The apparatus has a plurality of individually rotatable tool nests which are sequentially spaced on a rotating or indexing turntable. These tool nests sequentially receive plastic packages for receiving the needle and suture at a first station. At a second station, a needle is inserted into the package by robotic fingers which have retrieved the needle and attached suture from the rotating needle feed wheel. The rotating needle feed wheel and the rotating tool nests are synchronized to step together as each advances. At a third station, the package and needle are rotated to tension the suture and position the package and the suture for automatic winding of the suture into the package. At a fourth station, the rotatable tool nest is rapidly rotated to wind the suture into a circumferential channel in the package which surrounds the needle.

Automatic zipper package winding and packaging machine

Needle feed wheel and needle transfer mechanism

Zipper package winding tool mechanism

Growing community of inventors

Bound Brook, NJ, United States of America

Konstantin K Ivanov