Patent 8112869 was granted and assigned to DePuy on February, 2012 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method for manufacturing a spherical cage. The method includes providing a wire braid and inserting a spherical ball inside the wire braid. The wire braid and spherical ball are placed inside a mold. Excess wire braid is trimmed from the mold, creating trimmed ends of the braid. The mold is heat set with the spherical ball and wire braid. The spherical ball and wire braid are removed from the ball and the spherical ball is removed from the wire braid, resulting in a spherical wire cage.