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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.'"
"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
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
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
although Feynman eventually did manage to get $1 for the idea of a nuclear submarine...
Heh. Though of course, while you could call that story an example of an inventor being screwed out of his IP rights by the government, I'd say it's more an example of patents being granted frivolously.
As I recall, the way he told it was that, after the Manhattan Project was done, Feynman was asked if he could think of any other (i.e., non-bomb) applications for atomic energy. He replied by listing, off the top of his head, a bunch of "things that use energy". He later found that he'd been granted, for each $X in his list, a patent on "an atomic-powered $X".
Kinda puts "1-click shopping" to shame, huh? In a way, it's heartening -- at least the USPTO's willingness to grant patents on vague ideas, without even requiring them to have been implemented first, is nothing new.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
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.