Slashdot Mirror
Patents vs. Secrecy
giampy writes "New Scientist is reporting that the NSA appears to be having its patent applications increasingly blocked by the Pentagon. From the article: 'the fact that the Pentagon is classifying things that the NSA believes should be public is an indication of how much secrecy has crept into government over the past few years.'"
publish it! :D
really..
Does this mean that there are a bunch of secret ideas out there that I can patent for my own personal profit? Score!
"From the article: 'the fact that the Pentagon is classifying things that the NSA believes should be public is an indication of how much secrecy has crept into government over the past few years.'""
Now there's a double helping of Irony.
The pentagon is more paranoid than the NSA.
Plus it was the NSA that was paranoid back during the RSA era.
If the Pentagon makes your patent secret, will they compensate you? I know that's a hard call as far as value is concerned. But let's say you're in negotiations with some company. You're coming to an amount of $5 million. Will the Pentagon send you a check for $5 million. Will they compensate the company in negations with you too? Or will they just say "Eminent Domain" and just take the thing and if you object, put you in jail?
What would happen if you just said "Fuck you!" and release it on the Net - jail you? The cat's already out of the bag.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
...to make the judgement that the government is becoming more secretive. The article states that in each of the three years prior the Pentagon has blocked 4, 5, and 9 patents submitted by the NSA. Three years of evidence is hardly enough to go by. There may be a perfectly good reason as to why more patents were blocked this year. With such a small number of patents denied it is possible that the NSA applied for more patents and the percentage of patents blocked is actually less than previous years. It is also possible that The NSA developed more inventions this year that could be deemed sensitive information. I would like to know how many patents submitted by the NSA have been blocked by the pentagon in the past 50-60 years and what percentage of patent applications have been blocked each year. That information would be much more useful. Move on, nothing to see here.
Time makes more converts than reason
i wondered about this but never looked into it ..anyone know if they secretize a patent or something .. do they pay or commercial losses? It's reasonable that you are owed compensation for whatever legitimate commercial value the damn thing has (not just payment for the govt. to use it .. since well they can dictate the price since they are the only customer you can sell it to).
Seems to me more like an indication of how much secure cryptography has gained value as a tool of war.
I suspect that the Pentagon is more concerned with preserving an edge in weapons technology, than with secrecy-as-secrecy.
The secrecy thing is just a side effect of wanting the edge.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Once I patent the Aurora i'll be filthy rich, and be able to fly anywhere on earth really fast :p
Honestly, the fact we know there ARE secrets is progress from the Cold War, in my opinion.
===
Having done a smidge of work for the government, I'm happier with secrets "just in case" than creating holes that might not have to have been made.
Does this mean that what is being kept secret *needs* to be? Not always... but it is better safe than sorry.
[obviously there are extremes, making an office supply order confidential for example, but patents are understandable]
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
The brief description of this article on slashdot as well as the article itself are a bit alarmist. The article does say that the number of secrecy orders on NSA patents has increased (nine in '05, as opposed to five in '04 and none in the previous three years), but the number of secrecy orders on private inventors has been cut nearly in half, from 61 to 32. This indicates that in some ways the USPTO is being less secretive, not more. It is possible that the small change in NSA patents is due to a different bureaucratic mechanism for screening patents, perhaps the NSA itself has gotten less stringent so the USPTO and the Pentagon have had to become more sensitive in order to compromise, and it is even possible that the change is statistically meaningless due to the small sample size, but it is harder to account for the larger drop (numerically) in the secrecy of the patents of private inventors.
Does that mean the NSA will have to fall back on good old reliable Human Inteliigence to infringe on our rights? Damn, just when I thought I'd be getting rid of the 'inconspicuous' (N)o (S)uch (A)gency van sitting outside my house.....
When Coca-cola does this people call it a trade secret. When the United States government does this it infringes on someone's rights???
Yeah. Coke keeps its forumla secret. You try to patent something, only to have the Pentagon declare ti secret and not pay you.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
That might make it easier to know how justifiable these patent blocks were. I knew that most of us think the Pentagon is being paranoid, but it's possible that maybe the NSA submitters missed an angle. Security through obscurity isn't exactly the best, but if it's one of those "oh,wow" sorts of things, then I can see that.
:(
Domestic or foreign, I doubt the leadership (i.e. non-pawns) of a terrorist group would be be unwilling to make the best use of anything they can get their hands on. It's just too bad we won't know if the benefits of the patents would have balanced that out by providing to the American public
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Quite interesting what kind of patents they have for example "US05224756 Integrated child seat for vehicle". I bet James Bond never had that one! Full list of patents: http://cryptome.org/nsa-patents.htm
Honestly now...
Coca-cola is a private company. The government is by definition a public body that we, ideally, control. If Coke invents some new thing and decides to keep it a secret, you can tell them how you feel by not buying any Coke. You have no choice with the government.
They take your taxes, period. I think it is quite reasonable to insist that what the government does/creates with our money be made, if at all possible, public. That's how government is supposed to work.
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
If you are going to try to negate an argument, I'd like to at least know why.
===
If you've never been in a position handling classified information, it may be hard to see security holes.
I garauntee, in that position, you see a lot more paranoia than declaring certain patents a secret.
I don't think it is out of line... the line "better safe than sorry" may be a cliche, but in my experience, when it comes to government security, the cliche holds true.
*shrug*
That's just my point of view, you are free to your own... but I'd like to know why you have it, there may be some element of your experience we could all benefit from.
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Uh huh. Maybe we should have a public referendum on whether or not to classify each patent too?
The war on pigeon doo-doo
Two and a half months after a Freedom of Information request was filed, a 376 document was produced, but with 149 pages completedly blacked out and 102 pages partially blacked out.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
If you think your patent will get narfled by the US government what stops you from patenting it overseas first so the cats out of the bag?
NDA's for everybody!
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
The NSA, despite being secretive as hell, is one of the few government agencies that has consistently been upfront with the public. Multiple times they've found weaknesses in algorithms and fixed them, never giving an explanation, just a fix. In some cases it was years later that anyone started figuring out how exactly the changes worked to make the algorithm more secure, and some modifications still aren't understood by the public, but its been shown that they all increase the overall security of the algorithms in question. The NSA has motivation to make these as secure as possible simply because they also use these algorithms to securely exchange information among contractors and other agencies. I've read before that the NSA is as much as 50 to 100 years more advanced in mathematics than the rest of the world, now I don't know how accurate this is, but judging from their history it probably isn't too far off.
Regards,
Steve
There's nothing new about government agencies over using their rights to classify documents, it's done all the time. From a brief stint I had working with the government, I experienced this first hand.
While it's not necessarily a bad thing - the "just in case" factor is certainly important - it affects government efficiency a great deal at times and leads to conspiracy theories growing.
George W. Bush is secretly patented for breakthroughs in stupidity and frequent mispronunciation of the word nuclear.
I don't get the tone of this headline, that if the Fed has a secret, it must be a bad thing. How would you propose the Gov't protect the country in the absence of secrecy. Full disclosure? A grand idea that has never worked (of course in a sense secrecy hasn't worked either, as all societies in the past have fallen). The fact of the matter is that secrets are not only normal, they are a requirement for survival. We all practice a level of secrecy even in our lives; at work, in relationships, etc. and we use them to protect ourselves (psychologically and emotionally mostly I'd presume). Companies exercise extreme measures to protect trade secrets. Pitchers and catchers use "secret" codes to communicate so as not to divulge their plans to the batter. The NSA is not a den of evildoers. They're a good bunch of folks, no different than you and I save for the fact that they're willing to work for a lot less money because they feel it's for the greater good. I'd venture to guess that greater than 50% of NSA employees are /.'ers, albeit not the most vocal of the bunch. ;) The military/intel communities have abused power at times, but that is not the norm. Blah blah blah...I'll shut up now, I'm boring even my self.
Along with their more famously sneaky missions, part of what the NSA is tasked to do is help ensure the crypto/cybersecurity of the people of the United States. The DoD is probably trying to block the NSA because of fears of what the NSA may release to aid the United States would also aid our enemies, since it's supposed to be their job to marginalize and/or eliminate those enemies.
Personally, I think the Department of Defense should remember why the word "defense" is in their name to begin with, and not just some sort of Orwellian "Minipax" ploy. The priority here should be defending the United States, not necessarily attacking our enemies. The best defense may be a good offense, but it isn't the only defense.
That's the part that doesn't make any sense. It's paid for by taxpayer dollars (which includes the better-behaved of companies out there), so why would the NSA try to patent them? As a source of funding? As leverage in cross-licensing agreements?
Why does the government do this?
The ______ Agenda
NSA has always done a number of things in the open. Up till the iron curtain fell, the pentagon actually had a lot of power. After that, poppa bush and congress scaled back the military. Clinton decreased spying earlier on, but then increased them after a few years, but did not spend a whole lot extra on the military.
Now, that the military is fighting a 2 front war (and looking at the very real possibility of a 3 front war in another year), they are getting a lot of power. More importantly, they are willing to use it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...secrets patent you!
...of the backyard inventor working on some perpetual motion device who gets a mention in the local rag and subsequent vists from strange dudes in suits who drop vague warnings about continuing to develop...
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
The NSA is absolutely NOT part of the DOD. They are totally seperate entities.
does that mean my X-Wing is going to be ready soon?
Well, probably no more secrecy than Churchill's declaration that anyone caught revealing that England had a German Enigma machine would put to death.
Domestic or foreign, I doubt the leadership (i.e. non-pawns) of a terrorist group would be be unwilling to make the best use of anything they can get their hands on.
Something tells me that the Pentagon is more concerned with foriegn governments getting a hold of the patents rather than terorists.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
For me, the big surprise here is that the NSA, an agency of the federal government, can apply for a patent in the first place. How does that work, exactly, when the NSA actually gets a patent? Since it's funded by tax dollars, can anyone use the invention? Do we need to apply for a license to use the invention? Is there a licensing fee? If so, where does that money go? Government agencies are neither people nor corporations, so do they have some sort of legal status that allows them to own things like patents? Could the FDA or the NIH start patenting drugs? Could the House of Representatives patent some novel method of voting and prevent the Senate from using it?
Perhaps they're trying to patent ideas in order to make them public and prevent anyone else from obtaining a patent on the same idea, and we're all free to use the idea. But then why not just publish the idea and make sure that the USPTO is aware of it?
Patenting is an exchange: the government gives you exclusive rights to control the innovation for a period of time in exchange for your making it public. The idea of classifying any patent breaks the system. That's why there are both patents and trade secrets. Public access is such an integral part of the patent system that we should all take very seriously any attempt to allow any patents or patent applications to be classified.
Better to light a candle than complain about the darkness.
> The government is by definition a public body that we, ideally, control [...]
> They take your taxes, period. I think it is quite reasonable to insist that what
> the government does/creates with our money be made, if at all possible, public.
> That's how government is supposed to work.
That only works with a government that only governs.
Unfortunately, some governments are not content with just governing. They want to rule.
If Coke invents some new thing and decides to keep it a secret, you can tell them how you feel by not buying any Coke. You have no choice with the government.
You can tell the government how you feel by voting out the current politicians at election time in favor of politicians that agree with your beliefs and ideals. You choice is to vote for or against currently elected officials. Granted this will not help you at this precise moment, but neither will not buying Coca-Cola products provide instant results from Coca-Cola.
Raw firepower is still important, but importance of communications is growing very fast.
Our modern enemies care deeply, where and when the infidels' convoy will be passing or which people can be kidnapped and when. We'd like to be able to intercept their communications, and we don't want them to be able encrypt it so well, that we can't...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That's the part that doesn't make any sense. It's paid for by taxpayer dollars (which includes the better-behaved of companies out there), so why would the NSA try to patent them? As a source of funding? As leverage in cross-licensing agreements? Why does the government do this?
To recoup money from it's investment. The feds spend millions and in some cases billions developing technology. Why should businesses get that research for free? They license out the patents and put the money back into the general fund. That way, they have more money to do more reasearch and pay for other things. Unfortunately, I can't find offhand how much is collected yearly this way.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
What?
govern
v 1: bring into conformity with rules or principles or usage; impose regulations; "We cannot regulate the way people dress"; "This town likes to regulate" [syn: regulate, regularize, regularise, order] [ant: deregulate] 2: direct or strongly influence the behavior of; "His belief in God governs his conduct" 3: exercise authority over; as of nations; "Who is governing the country now?" [syn: rule]
v. ruled, ruling, rules
v. tr.
1. To exercise control, dominion, or direction over; govern.
2. To dominate by powerful influence.
3. To decide or declare authoritatively or judicially; decree. See Synonyms at decide.
4. a. To mark with straight parallel lines.
b. To mark (a straight line), as with a ruler.
Ah, I see. I hate governments that want to mark with straight parallel lines too.
All joking aside, assuming that you were trying to say that our government wants absolute control rather than limited powers, that's inherent in any government because it's inherent in people, and governments are run by people. That's why the framers of the Constitution tried to limit and balance that power with term limits, 3 branches of government, and public accountability.
So in fact, openness doesn't "only work in a government that wants limited controls", it creates and sustains such limitations.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
If they think you did it on purpose they will charge you with treason and lock you up for a long time.
I am a touch confused here. I was under the impression that State and Fedral bodies could not file patents? Did something change or am I missing something.
Ascii artist &
http://www.hedfud.com/media/albums/videos02/mobile _laser.wmv
Direct link to WMV file of a military film introducing an operational high power laser. They show it taking out shells and rockets in midair. Some lousy special effects, but educational.
So what stuff are they keeping secret?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If I told you, I'd have to kill you.
The NSA is, and always has been, part of the Defense Department. It's not a secret. Next time, google before you post.
http://www.intelligence.gov/1-members.shtml
"Three major intelligence agencies in the Department of Defense (DoD) - the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) - absorb the larger part of the national intelligence budget. NSA is responsible for signals intelligence and has collection sites throughout the world."
The reporter could have benefited from an org chart.
US Military: "We don't want you to release that information."
You: "Oh yeah who is going to make me? You and what army?"
US Military: "Well......."
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Not that it would do him any good, but why wouldn't they have a military judge that could deal with such sensitive issues?
From TFA itself:
"However, at another level, the Pentagon appears to be relaxing slightly: it seems to be loosening its post 9/11 grip on the ideas of private inventors, with the number having patents barred on the grounds of national security halving in the last year.
In the financial year to 2004, DTSA imposed 61 secrecy orders on private inventors, a number that had been climbing inexorably since 9/11. But up to the end of financial 2005, only 32 inventors had "secrecy orders" imposed on their inventions."
Um, judging from their history (which btw is not THAT long to begin with), they are about 10, maybe 20 years ahead at best. They supposedly knew about public key crypto a couple of years before anyone else (although we have only their word on that) and we know that they knew about differential cryptanalysis about 10 years ahead of the public sector (if the history of DES is any indication).
Let's not forget though, they are not supermen, the are just the best the US has to offer. And we are not exactly known world wide as a math powerhouse.
Finkployd
From the article, it seems even private patents can be claimed under national security. I would assume with anything so claimed the inventor is basically screwed.
So here is the hypothetical question, suppose I invented a new method to decrypt information VERY fast (i.e polynomial time). If I did not apply for a patent here, but either patented it in europe, or just published it, would that be illegal?
As far as I can tell there are no requirements that you must try to patent an invention, nor any requirement that a u.s. inventor patent an invention in the US first.
Thoughts?
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
The government is by definition a public body that we, ideally, control.
Yes, but not each of us personally. We don't live in a direct democracy, where every action of the state requires our explicit approval and understanding.
The deal is, we elect representatives, and they have complete access to all information in the government, and complete control over everything it does, secret or otherwise. If the President wants to know exactly what the NSA is doing in some deep-dark secret lab, he'll ask and be told. If your Senator wants a briefing on ultrasecret Pentagon plans to dominate the world, he'll get one. And so forth. From the point of view of a Republic, if the President sees it, then "we" the people have seen it -- because he represents us. That's why he's elected, not a king by right of birth or something.
We're supposed to be electing people we trust to manage responsibly on our behalf whatever secrecy the government needs to defend our interests. If they can't be trusted to decide on our behalf what should and should not be kept secret, we shouldn't be electing them. Contrariwise, people who are elected should reasonably be assumed to have the trust of the majority. (They may not have the trust of the minority who voted against them, of course, but that's just too bad, them's the breaks in a majority-rule system.)
Electing folks and then second-guessing them all the time is nuts. It would be like the shareholders of Coke (to use your example) demanding to take part, individually, in each and every corporate decision. The regular business of Coca-Cola, Inc. (bottling soda) would grind to a halt, and what you'd get instead from your corporate officers would be a lot of showboating for daily opinion polls, avoidance of any knotty issues sure to piss off this or that vocal subgroup, dithering and a lack of leadership, and a strenuous effort to avoid speaking plainly. Er, sound a bit familiar?
However, given the prevailing attitudes in the English speaking world, I suggest you patent your ideas in the non-UK EU. Luxembourg?
Pining for the fjords
How can universities, in the US, Canada, and elsewhere patent things? Like the government, they are supported by taxes and "donations".
The only difference between the two, in my opinion, is that a GOV forces you to pay for increased "services", while a UNI just jacks the prices of admission.
Notice that if I'm going to be investing $50000 in parts and equipment (say because I've just figured out to make a Farnsworth generator actually produce power), another $10000 for a patent makes a lot more sense. It is software patents that have such a ridiculous discrepancy between the cost of invention and the cost of a patent. That is why "people on /." (and Groklaw.net) are against *software* patents, not patents in general.
It is also software patents for which the Patent Office seems to have the most trouble distinguishing real inventions from the trivial. But even if that problem (USPTO ignorance of software technology) is fixed, there is simply no need for patent protection of software, because there is no hard cost of invention. It "only" costs time to write and debug code - and that debugged and working code is already protected by copyright. Software patents are purely a tool of oppression.
Even if you do manage to vote out the current government, the new one will not open up all the old "secrets", so you still have the secret.
..patenting the ideas in the rest of the world.
The government releases the data publicly. A US company designs a salable product from the data. They ship it to India, China or the Philipines for manufacture. The above countries now have the info they need to resell the concept. Sounds like they are protecting the people from the Company to me....
More than a couple of years. GCHQ had public key crypto long before R, S and A invented it. Someone upthread noted that secrecy led the British to throw away a massive lead in computer technology at the end of WW2; well, we did it again there. We had RSA for years and did sod all with it.
Not that I'm bitter, angry or resentful about the British government's policies on science and technology, no no no. I trust all those Sir Humphreys with their educations in the arts and classics to make the right choices...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You can have a more recent example of the pointlessness of classification. In 1970 the British CESG (their equivalent of NSA, though I think it pre-dates it!) invented Public Key Encryption. They classified it, and it never saw the light of day until Diffie-Hellman invented it independently in the public arena in the 1980s.
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/nsam-160/ refers.
Incidentally, I don't think the UK would have been much richer if they had not suppressed their crypto advances (on Churchill's orders!). They are suprisingly good at 'blue-sky' research and inventing new technology, and suprisingly bad at making money out of it. Jet engines and radar, for instance, were just given away. Of course, if they hadn't been, we would just have taken them anyway? Look at the story of the Miles M-52 aircraft ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic )....
You may be right.
...But you may not. That's kind of the point. When everything is a secret whether there's a valid reason or not, none of us knows what kinds of motivations are at work behind the scenes.
Even if I give the people in charge now the benefit of a doubt and pretend like all they're doing is covering their ass, it doesn't change the fact that now that the precedent is set and government secrecy is the rule, not the exception, there's nothing to stop someone who is truly evil from taking power and wreaking havoc the likes of which this planet has never seen.
Imagine a modern-day Hitler. (No, I'm not comparing him to George Bush, I'm talking about a hypothetical person who's litierally—word used correctly—much more evil.) Does anyone remember that he was Time Magazine's Man of the Year of 1938? As he was working his way into power, people loved him, because he seemed like an average working-class guy who wanted to do right by the German people. They had no clue what future atrocities were to come. It's not too hard for me to imagine someone like that being elected in this country. Now imagine if this modern-day Hitler managed to get in charge of the one and only world superpower, and that once he started doing things like, well, Hitler did, there was no way to hold him accountable. No one knew because all of his actions were classified as national security secrets. Hey, wait, isn't that pretty much exactly what happened back then?
Again, I'm not saying that that is what's going on right now, but who knows? Maybe it is. But even if it's not, if we allow a political environment in which it can happen, there's nothing to stop it from happening in 2008. Or 2012. Or 2016. Because it can, it's just a matter of time before it does. Such is the nature of absolute power.
Is this what we really want?
I'm sorry, but whether they're covering their asses or trying to take over the world doesn't change the fact that what they're doing is evil, and it literally—word used correctly—has the potential to destroy any semblance of freedom in this country and maybe even the whole world.
And to the parent post, that was an excellent point about the government not letting us keep any secrets from them. I've never really thought about it before, but it's really a scary thought. Every intimate detail of my life is open to Uncle Sam, but when I ask stupid questions to try to make sure Uncle Sam's not evil, well, it's a totally different story.
People are so wrapped up in how Uncle Sam will protect us from the terrorists that they forget to ask the question that's much more important: Who will protect us from Uncle Sam?
Btaim I would have to say that effect is little to none. Since 9/11 our government has gone off the deep end in many ways and this is just another example. Way back when radar was first developed and used during WWII. The simple notion of an electronic feedback circuit was classified knowledge. Based on the same faulty criteria our government is using now.
The electronic feedback circuit is such a fundamental concept as ohms law. Now I am not saying the proposed patent requested by the NSA fall in the same category. I am saying it would make little to no difference if the rest of the world knew it's content. Of course there is no way to prove me wrong since you would have to use classified material as evidence.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Come 'on, cut any silly implications that government secrecy is somehow something new with the Bush administration.
Perhaps you weren't paying attention, but up to September 11, 2001, the biggest Bush administration story was the unprecedented level of secrecy they demanded.
Things that had heretofore been matters of public record or simply allowable to discuss had become privileged and confidential. Bush adminsitration secrecy hasn't changed at all post 9/11, except now they say it is becuase "the world has changed," and invoke national security instead of executive privilege. But before 9/11 they were very aggressive about executive privilege, in effect saying that the administration could not conduct its business with the public looking over its shoulder in certain situation, despite the fact that the past four or five administrations managed to do so.
Just a month prior to 9/11, the top story was Cheney's drafting energy policy with his old business cronies and claiming it was a state secret. There were countless smaller stories about how data on government decision was drying up. Information on the composition of a group which advised the administration on stem cell research in April of that year was a closely guarded secret. Earlier that year, there were complaints that important parts of the Administration's trade policies were being kept secret.
State secrets have always exist. Political discretion has always been wise. But this administration has always found the free flow of information to be intolerable.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
limit and balance that power with term limits
Term limits for the presidency weren't added until the 22nd amendment, ratified in 1951.
The branches of government concept was a good one, at least until the republicans started threatening to remove judges that didn't uphold republican laws and the -1'st amendment making Bush and DeLay the ultimate arbiter of life and death, secretly ratified before the schiavo case.
1. What if the invention you worked so hard on and try to patent was classified when someone else tried to patent it. You obviously could not do a patent search. Do you just lose all your time and money.
2. What if you did not patent an invention that was previously patented and classified and start selling a product based on it. Again there is no way you could have known ahead of time the idea was patented.
3. What if the invention you tried to patent gets classified only to discover later that another company outside the US independently discovers and patents your same idea and starts selling a product based on the same idea.
People: You can argue all you want if a government agency can obtain a patent or why one branch can over-rule another branch on a security issue. On the face of it your arguments have logic and many of them seem well-reasoned.
But we are dealing with the government, the U.S. government. While we (the citizens of the U.S.) have many rights (like the freedom of speech) we no longer have control of our government. It will do what it damned well wants to. It has been that way since WWII with only a couple of notable exceptions. The truth is they will spend what they need to in order to accomplish what they want. Their lawyers will obstruficate enough laws and outspend anyone who tries to get in their way ten to one, making it impossible for even the wealthiest people or corporations to be little more then a speed-bump on the agenda.
I'm not anti-government. We need government and we need the laws that protect us. But face it, what we have created is something that lives and operates behind closed doors and establishes its own rules. Nothing, or nobody is big enough to change it. That hardly means don't try. As citizens we need to demand accountability because it is we who they represent. The article was good from that standpoint. It uses our freedom to challenge the government to explain itself. Unfortunately, we already know the answer will be a stoney wall of silence.
I'm sure you 'old timers' out there remember him? He was so warm and fuzzy. A real "patriot". Looks like that type of crap is cranking up again.
Oddly enough, there's now a movie about that period. Hmmm.
Something tells me that the Pentagon is more concerned with foriegn governments getting a hold of the patents rather than terorists.
Depending on the patent, I'd agree with that (not like we'll ever know). The idea of government sponsored industrial espionage is kind of interesting. I can see the NSA having lots of high-tech computer hardware stuff that'd any country would like their domestic industry or militaries to have. If nothing else, the Pentagon may just not want anybody to know some of the things we can do.
Terrorists are not relevant to this discussion, since in most cases technology like timers or remote controls are beyond them.
I wouldn't call Timothy McVeigh incapable of using technology like timers or remote controls, and I doubt many would argue he wasn't a terrorist. Assuming that terrorists are all ignorant specimans of humanity makes them more dangerous because it means you're not taking them seriously. There's absolutely no reason a person with a Doctorate level of education wouldn't become a terrorist. It's politics and extremism mixed up, not something that being able to program a VCR would preclude.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
What commercial companies do is to first patent it in Great Britain (which covers the whole EU) and then here in the US - the gov can no longer suppress the patent, as it is published already.
I think there's an underpining discussion that has to come about in order to fully understand the whole context. Simply, the label of "classification" is directly related to that aspect of national security which involves one of several areas as listed by Executive Order.
0 030325-11.html Executive Order 12958
In other words, you (collective) elected the man that makes the rules.
Part and parcel with that is a misinterpretation that the man who makes the rules wants the strongest implementation of those rules. Not always the case, but it can often be taken to extremes - especially since folks who have clearances often times don't read the originating Executive Order that precipitated the whole thing. So you're left with the impression that "I have a clearance, this information might possibly be used, somewhere, somehow, someway, to cause harm to the US Government." It's an education issue.
And, in case you're really got a penchant for reading exceptionally long government documents, here's a link to a semi-recent version of the Executive Order 12958, which has been superceeded but I can't recall the 13 thousandish EO that's the new one.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/2
In the United States, democracy does work. So instead of bantering the chant about a huge government conspiracy, the next time you talk to a friend who works for the government (with or without clearance), say to them, "Do you understand the precepts behind your requirement for protecting information? Here, let me point you to this URL."
-some schmo
Making a timer is trivial as is making any of a wide range of very toxic or explosive substances based on widely available literature. That potential terrorist with a doctorate really has a very low potential for terror becuause they would have a wider choice of options than some kid with nothing to lose told to blow himself up in a crowded area.
I find it extremely bizzare that a discussion on patents has degenerated into yet another "can't do it - what about the terrorists" discussion. The first world war started with a terrorist action, we shouldn't try to stop the world moving and sit on our hands because stuff blew up in a different place to the usual and a portion of the worlds population has just noticed that these things are happening.
Yah, I got a bit side-tracked by the whole "stupid terrorist" thing. It's not like they're all suicide bombers. Anyhow, sorry. I agree with not trying to stop the world moving because of unexpected things. Pause, think it over, adapt and overcome. Or something like that :)
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
It's a long shot, but the Supreme Court just accepted an appeal that could invalidate most U.S. software patents in a single stroke. This would happen if Justice Stevens, the only justice on the current Court to have heard a patent "subject matter" case, follows his previous opinion in Parker v. Flook (way back in 1978!)and convinces the other "patent virgins" justices on the court to follow his opinion.
c ourt-takes-patentable-subject.html
More information at http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/10/supreme-
...and you're still not getting the point. I don't care how many hoops Microsoft had to jump through to get the 'IsNot' patent; the claimed invention is fundamentally unworthy.