Speaking with another message to the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin called what he believes is the main threat to Russia. And these were not NATO missiles and international terrorism, but the technological backwardness. It is this, according to the head of state, which can lead the country to lose its sovereignty. Obviously, these words were uttered by the president with an ulterior motive, confirmation of them "flew" from the "Single Depositary of intellectual results" (EDDRID), who calculated that, according to the results of the previous year, the number of patent applications for inventions decreased by 12.3% low level of 11 years ago, amounting to only 36 thousand. 454 pieces. The number of patent applications from Russian physical and legal entities decreased by 15%. The number of applications filed by foreign companies, which for a long time supported the Russian market of intellectual property, fell by 7.5%. Even worse is the situation in the field of innovation. If in the year 2004. the share of enterprises using advanced technologies and developments in their business was 10.5%, in 2012 it was 9.9%, in 2015 it was 9.5%, in 2017 it was reduced to 9.2%. What is happening in the Russian innovation segment and why are high-tech industries of the domestic economy in such a neglected state? There are several reasons for this.

One of them is a consequence of the reduction of R & D and the reduction of research activity in Russian universities. However, this, although important, is far from the only reason. The main reason for the decline in the share of the innovation segment is the banal lack of demand for its products. Low rates of development of the domestic economy do not contribute to the growth of the need for new technologies and innovations. The growing role of the state in the economy reduces competition between economic actors, the main instrument of which throughout the world are all the same technologies and inventions. As the economy continues to depressed, these trends will only increase. On the other hand, all this does not mean that Russia is deprived of talented scientific personnel. Own "Plato and the quick minds of the Newtons" Russian land still has not forgotten how to breed. The only problem is, all these "Platos and Neutons" are not in demand at home - for the above reasons. This explains the continuing decline in the number of patent applications. Scientists and inventors do not see the point in obtaining Russian patents for their own inventions, realizing that here they will not under any circumstances successfully realize their invention. As a result, most of them are patented and sold abroad, subsequently falling into Russia already in the form of finished goods or technologies of foreign origin. Is it possible to somehow suspend this process, and make domestic scientific and technical potential work for our country? Theoretically, yes, but only if Russia develops its own steady demand for high-tech developments. In practice, talking about something like this is meaningless. The long-established export-raw materials model in Russia does not need its own technologies and inventions. It is quite effective and provided that all scientific and technological needs (mainly technologies of extraction and production of raw materials) can be covered by foreign developments. That is why the overwhelming majority of domestic fuel and energy complex operates on imported equipment and technologies. All this has already led to grave consequences for Russian applied science, which in some cases are irreversible. The fact is that modern scientific and technological research is a continuous process, well funded, lasting for decades and based on the accumulation of previously acquired knowledge.

Even with a large amount of money, it is impossible to create new machines and technologies that can compete with what is being created in the US, the EU, Japan, South Korea and, in part, even in China. This is well understood by representatives of the richest Middle Eastern countries, who have left attempts to create their own scientific and technical potential. With big oil money, they are actively buying up ready-made technologies and high-tech goods. Therefore, to speak about the possibility of an early exit of the Russian scientific and technical industry into a wide open space today is at least naive.