I mean, if some dude invented a neutron bomb in his garage, how would they know until it’s too late? 🤔
secrecy orders have been imposed not only on inventions affecting military defense but also on those alleged to threaten economic stability, with critics noting that many such restrictions rest on speculative or unproven harms.
But also
The law applies broadly to all inventions in the United States for which a patent is filed or granted (35 U.S.C. § 181).
So if you really do have a society changing invention - one that could upset this capitalist or neoliberal world order - it is your duty to publically release it and not patent it
In which case some rich cunt will patent it and nuke the internet of its details
No.
Anyone want to bet that there are inventions that are great but would cost some people serious money and that’s why we’re not seeing them?
Not taking that bet. From the linked wikipedia page.
According to reporting in Wired and Slate, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has at times considered applying secrecy orders to inventions deemed disruptive to established industries.
You may be sure that there are times when they did more than consider it.
Yes this video destroyed me and made me realize that any life-changing awesome invention would surely be suppressed
Oh good, apparently my late father’s Folding Crossbow isn’t a restricted patent…
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4926834A/en
I still posess the prototype, albeit a bit damaged now.
that’s cool. Seems a bit ‘busy’ for something that should be foldable
6543 inventions are currently suppressed.
Like what?
/s
Pills that actually make your wang the size of an elephant trunk while making it prehensile.
I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them have to do with rocketry or bioweapons and other things to make them work. I’ve designed things personally that are not destructive themselves but aid in testing or improving accuracy of hypersonic vehicles. The DOW (formerly DOD) did not allow us to apply for patents due to national security.
Reticulated splines
Nonsense, Maxis did it for years
Successfully dividing by zero.
*lights lighting up on NSA dashboard*
My flying boots, for one.
Like an air cooled fiberglass engine that runs on water, man!?
Water? Brother that’s 50’s tech.
We’re on to Cold Fusion reactors the size of your fist, SRO high-entropy alloys, and room temp superconductors.
:D
Literally does make sense. You don’t want the how to for building a good gyroscope out there(too much). Some bits and pieces are really hard to get working well. And when you do you get great ICBMs. Still might want to patent it.
Yeah, let’s voluntarily lower the quality of all of our lives simply to give some minute advantage in the geopolitical chess game.
You would not use those in consumer tech. They are only useful for spaceflight. Which necessarily includes weapons.
All technologies have military and civilian use. Just because you can’t think of a civilian application for precision gyroscope doesn’t mean others can’t. Precision surveying immediately comes to mind as a potential application, plus civilian inertial navigation devices.
And no, there is not some magical level of precision that only the military has use for. If something has military applications, it also has civilian ones. Hell, there are potential peaceful applications of nuclear bombs. If those can be a dual-use technology, anything can be.
Yes, exactly. I used to design tools to test these and we weren’t allowed to patent them, but I think some of the high level concepts were secret patents though I can’t know that.
For anyone wondering the thing ICBMs (and jet planes) use is called a gyroscope and gives the same output but it isn’t a “spinning top” gyro that you might be thinking of. Rather think super sensitive dynamo, or reversed motor. Tiny rotation turns into voltage signal.
There is an even newer type that uses laser but I don’t know anything about it.
