Traumatology and Orthopedics in the Focus of Intellectual Property

High incidence of injuries, diseases of musculoskeletal system and connective tissue leads to a high demand for modern high-tech materials in the area of orthopedics and traumatology. Development of russian materials is an extremely relevant issue, especially under conditions of restricted supply of foreign products to the Russian Federation. Creation of new products and their subsequent launch to the market require comprehensive protection of unique information about the design, composition or production/manufacturing technology of the product. Analysis of patenting domestic solutions for trauma and orthopedic surgery in the Russian Federation has shown that there are various risks associated with the commercialization of national products. For example, russian developers in a number of cases neglect patent protection of their developments, which puts successful developments at risk of unauthorized copying or claims from other market players. On the other hand, patenting strategy of domestic developers for their products in most cases contains a number of errors, such as narrow bounds of patent protection due to incorrectly drafted patent claims. For example, these can be in formulations that can be easily bypassed in case of commercial interest in the product, preferential patenting of technological processes, lack of comprehensive patent protection of the product. Such patenting errors make the development unattractive for investors and manufacturers, which leads to low commercializability of russian inventions. Thus, russian developers, who have significant scientific potential and competencies to create highly effective national products, do not proceed with technology transfer and cannot bring their promising and in-demand products to the market.