John Douglas Pendleton

US Patent:

20140331481, Nov 13, 2014

Filed:

Jul 24, 2014

Appl. No.:

14/339663

Inventors:

- Warsaw IN, US
Dean M. Acker - Napels FL, US
Jeffrey D. Brown - Palo Alto CA, US
Brian D. Earl - South Bend IN, US
John E. Pendleton - Dunwoody GA, US

International Classification:

B23P 17/00

US Classification:

29592

Abstract:

A plurality of individual medical devices is created that define a medical device family. Within the family of medical devices, each of the plurality of medical devices has at least one dimension that, within an acceptable tolerance, is substantially equal to the same dimension of another of the plurality of medical devices. Thus, for each medical device in the family, another, corresponding medical device has at least one substantially similar dimension. For example, a first medical device may have a first value for a dimension and a second medical device may have a second value for the same dimension that is equal to one of the sum of the second dimension and the acceptable tolerance or the difference between the second dimension and the acceptable tolerance. Thus, each of the plurality of medical devices varies from another of the plurality of medical devices by the acceptable tolerance.