Despite over 500 cases of copying of Russian military equipment in last 17 years, no patents have been filed in foreign countries to secure its intellectual property

"Unauthorised copying of our equipment abroad is a great problem. There have been 500 such cases over the past 17 years. China alone has copied aircraft engines, Sukhoi planes, deck jets, air defence systems, portable air defence missiles, and analogues of the self-propelled medium-range surface-to-air systems Pantsir," the Chief of intellectual property projects at ROSTEC corporation, Yevgeny Livadny, has said, TASS reported.

Livadny said that groups of Russian specialists working abroad often managed to expose such illegal copying, but even when such cases are registered, it is impossible to present anything in court, because there are no patents for Russian weapons and equipment registered abroad.

"Such foreign companies as Raytheon and BAE Systems have up to 5,000 patents abroad. They disclose their intellectual property, for they see no risks. In the meantime, neither our Defence Ministry nor defence-industrial complex enterprises have registered patents abroad.

In October, Rosoboronexport declared creation a consultative group for the protection of intellectual property rights within the framework of military-technical cooperation with other countries. The group incorporates officials from the Defence Ministry, federal service for military-technical cooperation, ROSTEC and ROSATOM.

Russian Kalashnikov rifle is the world’s most copied military hardware followed by parts of tanks, aircraft and helicopters. Companies from Israel, Poland, Ukraine and often bid to supply Russian origin parts despite them having no authority form the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to re-produce the parts.