Patent ID: 8568400

Claim:
An electrosurgical instrument, comprising: a housing having a treatment portion attached thereto and defining a chamber therein for retaining an activation circuit and a control circuit, the activation circuit being operably coupled to at least one activation element that is activatable to control the delivery of electrosurgical energy from a generator to tissue proximate the treatment portion, the control circuit including: a power circuit including a filter circuit having input and output node pairs for receiving and transmitting at least one voltage signal, wherein a voltage output signal transmitted from the filter circuit processed to provide a regulated voltage to power to the control circuit; a microprocessor; a receiver/transmitter module coupled to the output node pair of the filter circuit and the microprocessor to enable bidirectional communication between the electrosurgical instrument and the generator relating to usage information of the electrosurgical instrument, the usage information being selected from the group consisting of serial number of the electrosurgical instrument, instrument type, number of times the electrosurgical instrument has been activated, overall time the electrosurgical instrument has been used, operating parameters of the at least one activation element during each activation, operational status of the treatment portion during each activation, and power settings; and a charging circuit including at least one first diode electrically coupled to the regulated voltage and at least one second diode electrically coupled to an energy device of the charging circuit for recharging the energy device for supplying back-up power to the control circuit during periods when the electrosurgical instrument is not activated.