Technological Prospecting of the Manufacturing Process of Articulated Prostheses from the Combination of Rigid and Flexible Materials in a Single Piece

Abstract

This article aims to prospect and evaluate a patent application for an orthopedic technology based on the method of making artificial prostheses whose property belongs to the University of Brasilia. We inform that in this study the search on patent bases was adopted as a methodology, as well as a more comprehensive research on related aspects, such as market viability, for the purpose of deliberating about the maintenance or not of the annual fees applied by the INPI and, in this case, funded by the treasury. It is a technique called FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) for the three-dimensional printing of articulated prostheses for the hands, both for aesthetic and functional purposes. Through an analysis based on a SWOT matrix, therefore, a market projection was sought, both in the public and private spheres, even though the current intermediate conditions observed in the degree of TRL measurement were weighed.