US Patent Issued to Joint Development on Sept. 16 for "Processes for producing orthopedic implants having a subsurface level silicon nitride layer applied via bombardment" (Utah Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,416,077, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to Joint Development Inc. (Salt Lake City).

"Processes for producing orthopedic implants having a subsurface level silicon nitride layer applied via bombardment" was invented by Eric M. Dacus (Salt Lake City) and Erin E. Hofmann (Park City, Utah).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The process for producing an orthopedic implant having an integrated silicon nitride surface layer includes steps for positioning the orthopedic implant inside a vacuum chamber, mixing nitrogen gas and vaporized silicon atoms in the vacuum chamber, emitting a relatively high energy beam into the mixture of nitrogen gas and ...