Patent ID: 11877745
Assignee: CILAG GMBH INTERNATIONAL
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A | IPC A

Claim 0:
1. A surgical stapling assembly, comprising:
(a) a cartridge body defining a knife slot extending along a longitudinal axis, wherein the cartridge body comprises a tissue-supporting deck, wherein cavities are defined in the cartridge body and form rows of openings in the tissue-supporting deck, and wherein the rows of openings comprise:
(i) a first row on a first side of the knife slot and comprising first openings obliquely-oriented relative to the longitudinal axis;
(ii) a second row on the first side of the knife slot and comprising second openings obliquely-oriented relative to the longitudinal axis, wherein each of the first openings and each of the second openings has the same length; and
(iii) a third row on the first side of the knife slot; and

(b) a fastener removably positioned in each of the cavities and having a proximal fastener leg and a distal fastener leg, wherein the fasteners are positioned to form longitudinally-repeating first and second clusters of fastener legs, wherein each first cluster of fastener legs includes a first distal fastener leg of a first fastener positioned in the first row, a second proximal fastener leg of a second fastener positioned in the second row, and a third distal fastener leg of a third fastener positioned in the third row,
wherein each second cluster of fastener legs includes a first proximal fastener leg of the first fastener positioned in the first row, a second distal fastener leg of a fourth fastener positioned in the second row, and a third proximal fastener leg of the third fastener positioned in the third row,
wherein the second proximal fastener leg is distal to the third proximal fastener leg, and the second proximal fastener leg is proximal to the third distal fastener leg,
wherein the first cluster of fastener legs defines a first maximum distance between the second proximal fastener leg and either of the first distal fastener leg or the third distal fastener leg, and the second cluster of fastener legs defines a second maximum distance between the second distal fastener leg and either of the first proximal fastener leg or the third proximal fastener leg, wherein the second maximum distance is greater than the first maximum distance.