'Surgery' looks at inventions and innovations b...( Philadelphia PA March 6 2008 Surgeo...),Health

Philadelphia, PA, March 6, 2008 Surgeons are uniquely positioned to recognize areas for improvement in patient care and to develop innovative solutions to meet those needs. However, even the most productive surgical researchers may lack the know-how to develop their insights into successful commercial products. A special symposium in the February issue of SURGERY (Volume 143, Number 2, February 2008) provides surgeons with expert insights into the process of developing their ideas into commercially viable products that will benefit large numbers of patientswhile providing a financial return to inventors, investors, and university research departments.

Invited by the editors of SURGERY (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/623195/description#description), the symposium includes contributions from a cross-section of experts, including noted experts in copyright and intellectual property, technology transfer, biomedical engineering, and finance, as well as from surgeons experienced in translating research ideas into the marketplace.

With mounting financial pressures academic medical centers are seeking new ways to support their missions of education, patient care, and research. A key initial question is whether the idea is patentablethat is, truly new, useful, and non-obvious. Once an idea with commercial potential is recognized, it must be developed through the complex processes leading to commercialization.

The eleven articles in the symposium emphasize that surgeons who invent new products provide a positive service, bringing valuable ideas from concept to the patient's bedside. Without the arduous and painstaking process of commercializationincluding finding investors willing to take the financial risk of funding new technologiesinnovative techniques of clinical value will never be developed to th
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