IN RE: DAVID A. RUBEN DOCKET OF RECORD · 56 U.S. PATENTS

United States Patent Docket · prepared in tribute

The Sealed Machine

The collected patents of David A. Ruben, Bakken Fellow, Medtronic, Inc.

First filed
Nov. 23, 1993
Latest grant
Apr. 21, 2026
Grants of record
Fifty-six
Status
Docket closed to none — applications pending
Granted

An implantable device is a promise: nothing leaks in, nothing leaks out, for a decade or more, in warm salt water. This docket is thirty-three years of an engineer keeping that promise — one layer beneath the therapies, in the housings, welds, sensors, and power sources that decide whether any of it survives the body at all. Untie the string. The drawings speak plainly.

Plate I U.S. 5,535,097 · Jul. 9, 1996 · FIG. 4
Patent drawing, US5535097A: A perspective assembly view with the lid half pulled away from the main shell, exposing the connector hardware between them — the connector block, setscrew, spring contact, feedthrough pin, and sealing plug all floating in their positions like a freeze-frame of the device being put together.
A perspective assembly view with the lid half pulled away from the main shell, exposing the connector hardware between them — the connector block, setscrew, spring contact, feedthrough pin, and sealing plug all floating in their positions like a freeze-frame of the device being put together. The earliest drawing in the docket — the 1993 housing, David A. Ruben first on the inventor list.

The record, in numbers

  • 56 U.S. patents granted 1996–2026, every one assigned to Medtronic
  • 33 years of filings first filed Nov. 23, 1993 · latest grant Apr. 21, 2026
  • 6 lines of work packaging · lasers · sensors · power · flow · interconnect
  • 203 forward citations on one sensor patent alone — U.S. 5,885,471 (1999)

Cited in later patents by Boston Scientific · BIOTRONIK · Verily · Lockheed Martin · IBM

The Case Files

Six deep dives — each a line of work followed from its founding grant to its latest, with the drawings presented as plates and every claim tagged to its source.

The Full Docket All fifty-six grants, entered chronologically, 1996–2026 — each with its number, date, line of work, and standing in the record.
Plate II U.S. 5,885,471 · the most-cited drawing · FIGS. 7(a)-7(c)
Patent drawing, US5885471A: The central-rail-stop sensor in three views — assembled block, end-on cross-section, and full exploded stack — showing the piezoelectric beam suspended between a grooved cover and base whose center rails let it flex normally but catch its free end before a shock can snap it.
The central-rail-stop sensor in three views — assembled block, end-on cross-section, and full exploded stack — showing the piezoelectric beam suspended between a grooved cover and base whose center rails let it flex normally but catch its free end before a shock can snap it. Two hundred three later patents cite this one — the accelerometer that taught the pacemaker to feel motion.