Patent 7828727 was granted and assigned to EBI on November, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A surgical apparatus. The apparatus includes a handle structure, a shaft structure coupled to the handle structure, and a spreading structure coupled to the shaft structure and movable between a compact and an expanded configuration. The apparatus includes a protective sheath of shape-recovery material. The protective sheath covers the entire spreading structure in a substantially form fitting manner in any configuration of the spreading structure including the compact configuration, the expanded configuration and any configurations therebetween.