(12) UIllt€d States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 8,100,906 B2 Hafner (45) Date of Patent: Jan. 24, 2012 (54) ELECTROSURGICAL INSTRUMENT 4,976,711 A * 12/1990 Parins et al. .................. .. 606/48 5,078,717 A 1/1992 Parins et al. (75) Inventor: Dieter Hafner, Tiibingen (DE) 5,354,296 A 10/1994 Turkel (Continued) (73) Assignee: ERBE Elektromedizin GmbH, Tiibingen (DE) FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS EP 448857 A1 10/1991 ( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this EP 795301 B1 9/1997 patent is extended or adjusted under 35 W0 W0-99/37228 7/1999 U.S.C. l54(b) by 1159 days. OTHER PUBLICATIONS (21) APPL No‘: 11/886339 International Preliminary Report on Patentability (2 pages). W ' O ' ' 4 . (22) PCT Filed; Mar. 21, 2006 “men p““°n( pages) (86) PCT No.: PCT/EP2006/002605 Primary Examiner * Linda Dvorak § 371 (6)0) Assistant Examiner * Jaymi Della (2), (4) Date’: SeP_ 21, 2007 (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm * Dickstein Shapiro LLP (87) PCT Pub. No.: WO2006/100046 (57) ABSTRACT PCT Pub‘ Date: sep‘ 28’ 2006 The invention relates to an electrosurgical instrument for . . . cutting and/ or coagulating a tissue to be treated, comprising at (65) Pnor Pubhcatlon Data least one cutting electrode for conducting a high-frequency US 2009/0036887 A1 Feb. 5, 2009 (“HF”) current through the tissue for carrying out a cutting process and comprising power supply devices for supplying (30) Foreign APPli¢ati0Il Priority Data the HF current at least to the cutting electrode. The design of the electrosurgical instrument is improved so that the cutting Mal 24, 2005 (DE) ----------------------- -~ 10 2005 013 847 process can be carried outwith an increased reliability while prolonging the serviceable life of the cutting electrode at the (51) Int‘ Cl‘ same time. To this end, the cutting electrode is mounted on the A61B 18/18 (200601) electrosurgical instrument in a manner that enables it to rotate (52) U-s- CL -------------- ~- 606/51; 606/45; 606/15; 606/49; about a rotation axis and comprises at least one cutting area 606/52 which is provided in the form of a helical curve or similar Of CI2lSSIfiC2ltIOIl Search ............. .. three-dimensional curve around the rotation axis and See application file for complete Search history. which is arranged in such a manner that when the cutting _ electrode rotates about the rotation axis it is active over its (56) References Clted length in sections on the tissue when a section falls below a
