History as Documented by Patents and Patent Applications

Abstract

It has been a long tradition in medicine that new ideas and treatment concepts are hardly ever invented inside the universities. Usually, practitioners – because they really face the patients’ problems day-to-day – are the ones to develop new solutions. Not until later are the techniques adopted by universities, and usually it will be necessary, of course, to pay the universities to change their way of thinking, working and teaching. The history of BOI implantology reflects this situation, as can be seen looking at the patent situation in this field. Patents applied for and, of course, patents granted are relatively objective criteria to go by. They help us judge who the people were that have genuinely set scientific milestones and broken with traditional thinking in a constructive way.