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Comment by MichaelBurge | Hacker News Reader

He can't do anything about the existing IP. But in the future, is it worth assigning the IP to a foreign holding corporation and applying for a foreign patent in a country with patent-respecting treaties with the US?

They can't order an Icelandic company to do anything, even if it happens to have American shareholders. And even if manufacturing is done in the US, the most they could do is seize the ships, and there are stronger protections for that.

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If they're in any way sending information about these technologies abroad (e.g. to Icelandic patent authorities) they're violating ITAR.

These regulations were written by very smart lawyers specifically to avoid any clever hacks (aka loopholes) like this.

They simply publish them to a book, and send the book....

ITAR is unconstitutional on its face, sadly the courts have upheld it.

Phil Zimmermann and MIT Press showed everyone how to get around ITAR, 1st amendment trumps all

Information should be free....

> But in the future, is it worth assigning the IP to a > foreign holding corporation

But this would make the US-American individual coming up with the ideas (the "intellectual property") export it to a foreign nation. Which is exactly what currently seems to be prohibited by putting a secrecy order on the patents.

> They can't order an Icelandic company to do anything, > even if it happens to have American shareholders.

This company then better not employ any American engineers.

Wouldn't that kill their chances to sell it to the US Navy, which they were hoping to do initially?

I don't know the military purchasing requirements, but it might be that there's no way to get around it using shell companies.

The State department handles this, right? I suppose that's why defense companies like Lockheed Martin donate a lot of money to certain political campaigns.

The USMC was able to buy Harriers, I don't think a foreign supplier is out of the question.

The USMC Harriers were, however, built under license by a US aviation company. Ditto a bunch of other British-designed aircraft used by the USAF, such as the English Electric Canberra aka Martin B-57 Canberra:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_B-57_Canberra

(This traffic went in both directions: for example the British Army's AH-64D Apache Longbow gunships are built by Westland.)

> He can't do anything about the existing IP. But in the future, is it worth assigning the IP to a foreign holding corporation

That would be an export.

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