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If the patents are secret, doesn't that kind of defeat the whole point of them being patents? The only real reason I can see for them to be patents at all is so
by eridius 11y ago
If the patents are secret, doesn't that kind of defeat the whole point of them being patents? The only real reason I can see for them to be patents at all is so that way if someone else invents the same thing and tries to patent it, then the NSA basically gets to swoop in and say "nope, that patent is ours, we get all the patent licensing fees instead of you", which seems, well, pointlessly greedy. If the NSA just wants to be able to claim later on that they invented it first, why go to the bother of actually creating a secret patent systems? Seems like all they really need is a safe store for notarized descriptions of inventions that the patent office agrees to accept as prior art (and the only reason to even care what the PTO thinks is so the NSA doesn't have to pay patent licensing fees).
- detaro 11y agoSecret patents also work for patents filed by people outside the government, so the secret patent concept already existed. + if a patent loses the secret status, the inventor gets the credit (and maybe even a royalty share) for it.
- dogma1138 11y ago>The only real reason I can see for them to be patents at all is so that way if someone else invents the same thing and tries to patent it. That's pretty much the case it gives the NSA a heads up that some tech which is similar to what the NSA has been working on is now in the commercial sector, while I'm sure that the NSA goes trough patents that are filed this method gives them better assurance even if the patent office is usually quite bad at flagging patent collisions. It also protects the NSA from patent claims from the industry in case they add their tech to their TTP. The other use of this is that some patents might not be secret for the life of the patent in which case they can be added to the NSA's technology transfer program and licensed.
- Dowwie 11y agoIt doesn't seem right if the NSA were to generate revenue by licensing its patents. Any technology that they'd consider monetizing obviously no longer fits the for-national-security-only category and so should instantly be open sourced. Open sourcing declassified government technology really needs to become a 2016 initiative..
- corin_ 11y agoThere's plenty of private companies working on national-security level stuff, if the US Government is willing to buy, say, weapons from X company then why not license them patents to do it with?