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NSA Patents

nsa-patents.silk.co

87 pointsaburan2834 comments

There are fun patents there from all kinds of areas -- antenna design, database search, sorting, splitting data out of an optical fiber but also ... child car seat ( http://www.google.com/patents/US5224756 ) and game board design? Was NSA concerned about child safety. Are the workers that bored there they design child seats and game boards... so many questions. Also rifle holding tool: http://www.google.com/patents/USD681766 -- who are they shooting at?

Also wondering how these contradict with compartmentalization. Is there one department in charge of monitoring public patents and then notifyng USPTO? I would imagine there is a designated person from each department in charge perhaps. What if a system is part of a top secret program? Can't imagine anything patent related conflicting or allowed to jeopardize that.

Then can you troll the NSA by filling ambiguous or broad patents in certain areas to try to see if they'll think you've matched one of their patents and then publish any of their patents?

I suspect if you work there, you have to report all patentable ideas

And someone else gets promoted based on the number of patents filed.

Maybe side projects by employees that were squashed?

"The Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 is a body of United States federal law designed to prevent disclosure of new inventions and technologies that, in the opinion of selected federal agencies, present a possible threat to the national security of the United States.

The U.S. government has long sought to control the release of new technologies that might threaten the national defense and economic stability of the country. During World War I, Congress authorized the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to classify certain defense-related patents. This initial effort lasted only for the duration of that war but was reimposed in October 1941 in anticipation of the U.S. entry into World War II. Patent secrecy orders were initially intended to remain effective for two years, beginning on July 1, 1940, but were later extended for the duration of the war. The Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 made such patent secrecy permanent, though the order to suppress any invention must be renewed each year (except during periods of declared war or national emergency).

The decision to classify new inventions under this act is made by "defense agencies" as defined by the President."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_Secrecy_Act

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).

Secret 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.

>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.

FYI "public sector" specifically means the government (eg. the NSA is in the public sector).

Sorry meant the commercial sector :)

It 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..

There'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?

Why would the NSA need patents? I guess it is to prevent a private company from suing them if they come up with something first and somehow word gets out? That would explain why they are granted in secret and only published when someone else tries to patent it.

I don't understand why. Wouldn't prior art protect them in this case? They could just show a judge they had invented the idea earlier.

The best prior art is a previously filed patent application. :)

It's written that when someone files a patent and not granted. So when someone files an identical patent, the patent examiner revert the inventor with reasons that why his patent application can't go further ahead, like because of this patent of NSA.

So here, the patent examiner is doing what you are suggesting. He is citing a prior art and while doing so, they have to make the patent available for public.

I thought prior art only worked for published (prior) art? E.g. I can't claim I invented something before you if I never published/released my invention?

Edit: Literally the first two paragraphs of wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art

Probably recruitment. It makes a lot more sense when viewed from the perspective of a researcher who's considering whether to join the NSA.

None of us want patents, and the whole system is absurd. But at one time, it was considered prestigious to be named on a patent. And prestige is a powerful force. Part of the burden of working at a secret agency is that your work is secret.

E.g. This employee will be able to take credit for this work after they leave: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...

(Better not try to convert any programs that use loops into a program without loops.)

Wait, so if I take my ugly iterative code and convert it to a pretty recursive one, I'm infringing on an NSA patent? -.-

Worry not, if you were infringing, they would've let you know already ;)

Only in JAVA

GCHQ invented RSA encryption first, and independently. Had they patented it, when someone else discovered it they'd have had licensing options.

Along with the Diffie–Hellman key exchange too

NASA also files patents largely to ensure that technology that could benefit society isn't squatted on by a single company. For the most part they're free to license.

https://www.nsa.gov/research/tech_transfer/

(PDF) https://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/tech_transfers/nsa_techn...

Some people are saying that the NSA is wasting time with patents, but they clearly have a reason or two to file these patents. And I'm sure it could debated that it is either a good or a bad thing.

I want to know more about this game board patent: http://nsa-patents.silk.co/page/Game-board-id%3A-D637658 I wonder if they developed it into a full game or prototype at some point. Maybe it was supposed to be used for training purposes? Either way imagining a bunch of NSA guys sitting around playing their version of Cones of Dunshire made my morning.

You might be interested then in sandtable planning/training which is a core process for most Army Infantry and logistics units.

[1] http://www.army.mil/article/67057/NY_Guard_Soldiers_create_m...

[2]http://www.army.mil/e2/c/images/2015/02/05/380401/size0.jpg

Very interesting, did not know about that. Thanks for the links!

Seems like a lot of wasted tax $. Why are they wasting their $ and time to patent a board game, a way to get state of a GUI, child car seats? There's no way those things would even hold up, no way they'd even bother legally battling them, and just overall pointless.

Maybe it's about the money? There's this running gag in various movies and works of literature, that the world-protecting super-secret agency supports itself from the income generated by patents on (often alien in origin) technology. Isn't this a real example? :).

What is the motive here?

Why would the NSA concern itself with patents, considering its projects aren't intended for commercial use but for national security, are confidential in nature, and are protected by the most powerful branches of government?

https://patents.google.com/?assignee=National+Security+Agenc...

> they never expire

What? That can't be right.

I assume that the NSA would generate patents that thwart NSA intrusion methods?

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