The tendency of electrosurgical current and heat to cluster at the leading edge of a non-capacitive pad has been a long standing industry-wide design problem. Because of this clustering (known as "corner and edge effect"), safety considerations have dictated that pads should be placed with the long edge facing the surgical site (i.e.perpendicular).
3M has invented a method of reducing corner and edge effect. By doing so, 3M has been able to reduce the size of the electrosurgical pad without compromising patient safety. Smaller pad size will improve the ease of use required in today's patient care environment. 3M technology utilizes a lossy dielectric coating to increase the uniformity of RF current distribution over the entire conductive surface of the dispersive electrode. This patented technology (referred to by 3M as Safety Ring Technology) allows for a subsequent reduction in overall size of the electrosurgical pad. | 
