#$%^&*AU2014250697B220151210.pdf#####SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PREVENTING REPROCESSING OF A POWERED SURGICAL INSTRUMENT ABSTRACT A surgical instrument (10) is disclosed. The instrument (10) includes a microcontroller (400) coupled to a memory (402), the microcontroller (400) is configured to control the surgical instrument (10) and a usage counter (403) stored in the memory (402) that is incremented when the surgical instrument (10) is activated, wherein the microcontroller (400) is further configured to prevent actuation of the surgical instrument (10) when the usage counter (403) is above a predetermined threshold.