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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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