More than 500 cases of unauthorized copying of Russian weapons and military hardware have been exposed over the past 17 years, the chief of intellectual property projects at the Rostech corporation, Yevgeny Livadny, has said, Eurasia Diary reports citing TASS.

"Unauthorized 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 defense systems, portable air defense missiles, and analogues of the self-propelled medium-range surface-to-air systems Pantsir," he said.

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 Defense Ministry nor defense-industrial complex enterprises have registered patents abroad.

In October, Rosoborontexport 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 Defense Ministry, federal service for military-technical cooperation, Rostech and Rosatom.