Classified Patents

From: <reginal..._at_hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:13:33 -0800 (PST)

Dear Friends,

During my nearly 30 years being licensed to practice before the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office ("PTO"), I have occasionally come across this problem,
where a Secrecy Order is placed on a pending patent application, or more
significantly, on an issued patent. Copies of the issued patent are then
removed from the data banks and government depository libraries, and are
then most difficult to obtain.

I have found that secrecy orders tend to be on technologies related to
cryptography and chemical weapons technology.

For example, some of the Friedman patent applications from the
early-1930's, for Enigma-like devices were not declassified and "issued"
until the mid-1990's (#'s 6,097,812 and 6,130,946). [By the way, an
applicable version of the Enigma machine was patented in the U.S. by a
Berliner during the late-1920's, so all this secrecy and the early efforts
by the Polish, French, and Hungarian intelligence services, and later by
the British and U.S. intelligence services was to some extent a fantastic
mathematical exercise, as the machine had been largely disclosed in an
issued U.S. patent.]

And, for example, an issued 1960's patent disclosing how to isolate ricin
was recently classified and removed from almost all available patent
records. Old issues of the Official Gazette, the PTO's patent
abstracting service, still contain record and abstract of the patent.

A skilled patent practitioner may write a patent application and its claims
so as to not arouse unfair suspicion of those at the PTO evaluating the
patent application (during the pre-examination process for foreign filing
licenses and possible application of a secrecy order).

Electronic surveillance patent applications may be written to emphasize
commercial and retaining, or even biomedical or animal tracking
applications and claims.

I hope this is interesting or useful to some group members.

Best regards,
Robert Schlesinger
Rancho Cucamonga, CA


> [Original Message]
> From: <reginal..._at_hotmail.com>
> To: TSCM-L Professionals List <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
> Cc: <garya_..._at_hotmail.com>
> Date: 1/14/2008 9:13:41 AM
> Subject: [TSCM-L] {2276} Classified Patents
>
>
> Interesting blurb from the Oct. 18/07 edition of the New Scientist.
>
> "Over 5000 US patents are now state secrets
>
> 18 October 2007
>
> NewScientist.com news service
>
> It's the equivalent to blacking out five Thomas Edisons from history.
> Over 5000 patents in the US have now been decreed too sensitive to be
> made public, five times the number once held by America's most
> celebrated inventor.
>
> Figures released by the US Patent and Trademark Office last week show
> that secrecy orders were applied to 128 patents in the year to October
> 2007 - taking the total number to 5002. Of the new orders, 53 were on
> private inventors, against 29 in 2006.
>
> The US Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 allows US military and
> intelligence agencies to impose a gagging order on any patent -
> whether from a commercial R & D or a garage inventor - if its
> publication threatens national security.
>
> Private inventors
>
> Of the new orders, 53 were served on private inventors, compared to 29
> in 206 and 32 in 2005. The secrecy orders require inventors not to
> reveal details of their invention in any way - or risk 2 years in
> jail.
>
> 'I suspect that the oldest secret patents date back the ealy days of
> nuclear weapons,' says Steven Aftergood, who tracks government secrecy
> issues for the Federation of American Scientists. 'There are certain
> technologies that have not ceased to be sensitive despite the passage
> of 50 or 60 years.'
>
> Aftergood adds that the policy in unlikely to have stifled a modern-
> day Edison. 'It would be rather nice to think [they]had the answer to
> global warming or some other miracle energy-generation technology, but
> it's more likely to be a nuclear-powered can opener,' he says."
>
>
> The end.
> ......................
>
> Reg Curtis
>
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:21 CST