The Rush To Patent the Atomic Bomb

dooling writes "In case you were thinking of building your own atom bomb, you may want to weigh your intellectual property liability. It seems there are over 2000 patents covering the atom bomb. To avoid publishing the patents, a central tenet of the patent system, "the project made use of an obscure law whereby patent applications could be filed but no one would actually look at them or evaluate them. They would just be stamped secret and stored in a vault at the patent office." The irony here is that while all the patents were essentially stored in the same place at the patent office and written to be understandable by any engineer, the Manhattan Project worked diligently to compartmentalize knowledge, using code names for just about all aspects of the project and keeping tight security on all information. It seems the patents were filed to give the U.S. government an essential monopoly on the burgeoning nuclear industry and protect it against others who might patent similar technologies later."

Comments

So

[CrazeeCracker]

It seems the patents were filed to give the U.S. government an essential monopoly on the burgeoning nuclear industry and protect it against others who might patent similar technologies later.
So the cold war was really just about patent infringement?

Six Party talks

[Anonymous Coward]

Next up in the North Korean six Party talks:

USA: But we patented it, you're building the bomb in violation of our intellectual property!

North Korea: Well now that's finally a sound argument. We'll stop then. Have a nice day.

*white peace doves are sent flying*

Terrorism

[erikina]

It's good to finally see the patent system serving a purpose. Protecting us from nuclear terrorists. There's no way they couldn't infringe at least one patent!

Take that Terrorists!

[Timesprout]

pay up before you kill us

Surely you're Joking, Mr Feynman?

[argent]

The scientist quoted in the article, Philip Morrison, was still alive. So Wellerstein called him up. "He told me yes there was a patent, and he had to sign over his rights to it," Wellerstein says. "He was supposed to be paid a dollar, and they never paid him." Morrison died a few weeks after that call.

I guess this closes the story in Feynman's autobiography about the dollar!

About three months later, Smith calls me in the office and says,
"Feynman, the submarine has already been taken. But the other three are
yours." So when the guys at the airplane company in California are planning
their laboratory, and try to find out who's an expert in rocket-propelled
whatnots, there's nothing to it: They look at who's got the patent on it!
Anyway, Smith told me to sign some papers for the three ideas I was giving
to the government to patent. Now, it's some dopey legal thing, but when you
give the patent to the government, the document you sign is not a legal
document unless there's some exchange, so the paper I signed said, "For the
sum of one dollar, I, Richard P. Feynman, give this idea to the
government..."
          I sign the paper.
          "Where's my dollar?"
          "That's just a formality," he says. "We haven't got any funds set up to
give a dollar."
          "You've got it all set up that I'm signing for the dollar," I say. "I
want my dollar!"
          "This is silly," Smith protests.
          "No, it's not," I say. "It's a legal document. You made me sign it, and
I'm an honest man. There's no fooling around about it."
          "All right, all right!" he says, exasperated. "I'll give you a dollar,
from my pocket!"
          "OK."
          I take the dollar, and I realize what I'm going to do. I go down to the
grocery store, and I buy a dollar's worth -- which was pretty good, then --
of cookies and goodies, those chocolate goodies with marshmallow inside, a
whole lot of stuff.
          I come back to the theoretical laboratory, and I give them out: "I got
a prize, everybody! Have a cookie! I got a prize! A dollar for my patent! I
got a dollar for my patent!"
          Everybody who had one of those patents -- a lot of people had been
sending them in -- everybody comes down to Captain Smith: they want their
dollar!
          He starts shelling them out of his pocket, but soon realizes that it's
going to be a hemorrhage! He went crazy trying to set up a fund where he
could get the dollars these guys were insisting on. I don't know how he
settled up.

Re:Secret patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this work?

"You are infringing on my patent, the nature of which I can't disclose. Hand over money!" SCO lasted five years with that line alone.

Re:What about when the patent runs out?

[zappepcs]

What would make you think that the US Government would halt their work because someone had a patent on it? They would simply declare it a state secret and continue. They didn't need anyone's permission to invade Iraq. The whole thing is a big bizarre. I think it was just misguided thinking at the time, or perhaps those involved thought that a patent would stop the government... my how times have changed.

There goes my plan for world comination!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here I was planning to build a few nukes to make the world bow down before me, but I can picture how it would be:

"Attention, people of the earth, I have 100 nukes, and now I control the world. Mwahahahahaha! Hold on, phone call. What do you mean I am violating your intelectual property? Oh great, no, no need to sue, I'll surrender those nukes and be back with hydrogen bombs in a while. You say those are patented too? Oh great! How about biochemical weapons? I'll tell you what, screw world domination!"

Re:Where's the editor?

[argent]

The tenants of the patent system are the patent trolls.

Re:Just like the Yanks....

[JamesRose]

Hey! I resent that! The UK owns its own weapons completely. To be fair, we don't seem to be in complete control of the launch codes, but I'm sure when we call up america and ask for them nicely the old yanks'll just hand em right over, right?

Re:What about when the patent runs out?

[Hal_Porter]

The US government has defended the UK against the Nazis and Communists and defended Taiwan against the crypto fascist Chinese 'Communists'. Plus the've helped the world resist Islamofascism. I'm not going to say that they always did the optimal thing, but I do think that they acted mostly in good faith and mostly backed the right side. In fact I'm seriously considering moving to the US at some point. I think it's frankly bizarre that some US citizens don't see this, given that US foreign policy is decided democratically and therefore partly by them. Maybe those US citizens would be happier somewhere else ;-)

I guess ...

[PPH]

... this is why we haven't seen an Apple iBomb yet.

Like a patent's going to prevent a nuke

[British]

Dictator: I am going to build nukes! All other countries will given into my demands! Get on it.
Defense Secretary: Uh yeah, little problem here.
Dictator: What? We got the uraniam & stuff.
Defense Secretary: No, it's not that.
Dictator: Don't worry! Bush is busy in Iraq. What?
Defense Secreatary: Uh, it's about the patents. We legally can't build one.
Dictator: Oh darn, guess we won't be building one. We still have those bio-weapon plans around?

Re:I doubt it

[jamstar7]

Yo, dood, you're missing the point.

If a terrorist somehow manages to build one of these suckers, he's not gonna have to worry about Homeland Security comin after him.

He's gonna have to worry about a pack of l*wy*rs from a patent troll hounding him to the ends of the earth.

Which would you rather face?

Almost as good as world peace

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Patenting the bomb could be almost as good as world peace.
1.Patent bomb.
2. Wait until Dick Tater builds own bomb.
2. Send cease and desist notices.
3. Dick Tater ignores these.
4. Send planes full of lawyers.
5. Dick Tater shoots lawyers.
6. Good enough result.

Re:I doubt it

[mog007]

It shouldn't be a surprise how quickly things got done with the Manhattan Project. If you throw as many people at a problem, and as much money, as the United States government threw at the project, you could get just about anything done in record time. Take the equivalent amount of today's money, and throw it at HIV or cancer research, and if you didn't get a full blown cure, you'd surely get a treatment that would make those diseases as dangerous as gonorrhea.