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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."
Another reason why there might be patents would be simply for the benefit of the researchers involved.
The members of the Manhattan Project were all research scientists and engineers. Technically, what they accomplished was nothing short of amazing. They went from brand new basic physics and science discoveries to deployable weapons in just a few years. And while the principal players were already working in the physics world, they weren't able to publish the results of their work because it was top secret stuff.
It is only speculation, but it could be that the scientists and engineers were allowed to publish their work through patents that wouldn't see the light of day and could be kept under lock and key. They get to add numerous patents to their CVs and account for their years of work without revealing the inner workings of the weapons to the world. At least that could have been the intent. A few spies managed to compromise a lot of the information and the USSR exploded their own, copycat weapon shortly after the end of WWII.
Patent dementia. The kind of thing communists mean when they say "capitalists will sell the rope for the nooses to hang them".
You can't blame capitalism for patents though. Patents are a Government granted and enforced monopoly. In fact, I'd say they're very un-capitalist, in that the state steps in to control the free market, and preventing private individuals from manufacturing (effectively taking away the means of production from them). Patents are about Government control of the market and means of production.
A capitalist would sell you the rope to hang himself. But in a world with patents, you wouldn't be allowed to hang him, because the state has granted someone else a patent of "A means of terminating an individual's life by means of the application of rope and acceleration in a gravitational field"...
Thinking from a security perspective doesn't anyone else see massive flaws in this approach?
I mean, you take all your scientists and only work in seperate divisions, inside a mountain, in the middle of the desert. You get them each to make only 1 small part of the project, and then disregard them regardless of how clever they are so they can't know too much. You only have a very small group of the best and brightest, under incredible scrutiny, who are aware of the full magnitude of the plans.
Then you draw up full schematics for each of the 2 000 parts specifically so that any layman engineer can understand them, and hand them to a bunch of government employees getting paid minimum wage who aren't even necessarily citizens. Who stick all the relevant plans in a practically unguarded box in a random-ass office? I mean, the safe is practically just a briefcase that makes it easier to lug around!
Well, I can't blame "capitalism", because it's an economic system, not a person. But I can blame some capitalists, especially the monopoly capitalists who are the most extreme capitalists. They love a state-created (and defended) monopoly, which they don't even have to pay much to create or to defend.
A monopoly capitalist with the noose patent would try to stop you from hanging them by pricing the license out of reach, but if you could pay it they'd take it.
The most extreme capitalists hate a "free market" unless they've got all the freedom, and competitors have none. Sustainable capitalists (like me, and evidently like you) like a free market with government protecting it from monopolies of any kind, with the rarest exceptions.
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make install -not war
Here's the link to November 1, 1917 NYT article, btw. Sometimes Google search is too cool. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9905E1DC113AE433A25752C0A9679D946696D6CF&oref=slogin
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
"Monopolists" might be a better term, but why not just be specific and blame "People who support patents", rather than trying to brand them capitalists, "monopoly capitalists", communists or whatever else?
In answer to your questions, allow me to clarify this highly misleading quote from the summary:
'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."'
Top-secret government projects, like the Manhattan Project and the F-117 Nighthawk are, in fact, documented at the USPO in a protected vault, but they are documented as patent applications, not actual patents. If other entities develop technology which might infringe on patents related to the projects, the government asks the USPO to open whichever application is related. It's more "proof of prior art" than anything else. Once the actual patent is filed, the technology becomes public knowledge, so anyone else who applies for a patent on that technology will find their patent rejected along with good documentation of exactly why.
Scary? A little. But it's hard to think of any better, viable way to protect classified technology.
...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
You miss the point. The cheapest ICBM of all: The standard 40' shipping container.
Line shipping container with shielding (reduces neutron signature)
install bomb in container
Set bomb to detonate when container is opened
Put container on ship, bound for foreign port.
wait for boom.
If you detonate a nuclear weapon in a port city, you're likely in a major city where you could do a lot of harm to people, property and logistical capability of the target country.
If I were a small country with, say, 5 crude atomic bombs, and I wanted to do maximum damage to the United States, I'd simply send containers to bogus addresses in New York, Norfolk, Savana, Los Angeles and Seattle. This is a somewhat arbitrary list, to which you can add or subtract cities based on desired effect and number of available weapons: All are in the top 10 ports by tonnage. All have large populations. All but NY have Naval bases. NY is the financial center of the U.S.
Think about that for a while... Think about how easy it would be. You want the customs or port security people to open the container. Hell, just put "bomb" on the packing list, once it gets to its destination, who cares?
I'm not trying to be a fear monger. I happen to live in one of those previously mentioned port cities and it's occured to me just how simple this would be. With an improvised 20kton weapon you could take out a naval base, a major port and rail terminal, and kill maybe 1/4 million people in one shot.