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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."
If I'm building an atomic bomb, the threat of being hit by a patent lawsuit seems somewhat lower than, say, the threat of being bombed into a metaphor.
Plus, this is just the patent office. Now if the _IRS_ were involved...
So the cold war was really just about patent infringement?
Of course I didn't RTFA.
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*
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!
How does this work?
"You are infringing on my patent, the nature of which I can't disclose. Hand over money!"
If I've got an atomic bomb, I'm not going to pay any attention to your patent lawsuit.
As should be pretty obvious from all the other people who got atomic bombs.
Obvious to anyone, except evidently the retarded capitalists, lawyers or bureaucrats who shared the most secret and dangerous info in the world with an office whose primary mission is publishing technical info, for no use whatsoever except increasing the risk of proliferating the weapons.
Patent dementia. The kind of thing communists mean when they say "capitalists will sell the rope for the nooses to hang them".
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make install -not war
Yes this story is mostly for historical amusement, it has very little significance. Also, remember is applies to patents from the ORIGINAL Manhattan Project era. If you go out an invent a novel invention useful solely for atomic weapons you won't get a patent on it today: From the MPEP
706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2] - 700 Examination of Applications
706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2]
A limitation on what can be patented is imposed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Section 151(a) (42 U.S.C. 2181(a)>)No patent shall hereafter be granted for any invention or discovery which is useful solely in the utilization of special nuclear material or atomic energy in an atomic weapon.
The terms "atomic energy" and "special nuclear material" are defined in Section 11 of the Act (42 U.S.C. 2014).
Sections 151(c) and 151(d) (42 U.S.C. 2181(c) and (d)) set up categories of pending applications relating to atomic energy that must be brought to the attention of the Department of Energy. Under 37 CFR >*1.14(d)1.14(d)Director))
And for the record I AM a registered patent agent.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
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.
The reason for patenting ideas about the Manhattan Project are well explained in The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes which is a fantastic read. Nearly 1000 pages and Amazon is selling it for less than $15. The covers the recent history of modern science better than any textbook I've found.
Dekker Dreyer
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?
Actually the UK scientists simply remembered all the experiments and did them again when they got back home, making the UK the 3rd nuclear state, they then tricked the US into going them their H-bomb research, after their own H-bomb failed, by building a giant A-bomb (the biggest fission bomb ever made) and pretending it was a H-bomb, so who's the shmucks now eh?
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
The parent isn't funny, and while insightful probably fits, I think a category of depressing should be an option.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
The Manhattan Project was actually run by the University of California. It's the only way Oppenheimer would accept running the program. He told the military that the only way he would be able to get the people he needed was if it was an academic institution running it.
UC not only ran the Manhattan Project start to finish, it also ran the Los Alamos and Livermore laboratories until the last couple of years.
Operating in an academic environment, I could very easily see that the researchers would be valued and their welfare looked out for by finding ways for them to "document" their contributions without releasing the information to the world through regular publishing channels.
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.