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

Well...

[Chairboy]

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

[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?

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!

Mutually Assured Patent Destruction

[Doc Ruby]

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".

No more atomic weapon patents

[CajunArson]

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.

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.