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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

> we actually registered a patent on it in many countries around the world

Isn’t this counter-productive for military tech that’s supposed to give your troops an advantage in combat?

Pure speculation here... the only ground combat scenario Israel really has to worry about is with Hezbollah. So the calculation must be that either Iran doesn't have the materials expertise to manufacture this, or else they can and Israel has either compromised the supply chain, has technology to see through it on some other part of the EM spectrum, or both. For all we know it lights up like a Christmas tree if you hit it with millimeter wave from a drone. Either way, the Iranians probably will assume this and therefore not pursue the technology. Maybe they learned it was already leaked to Iranian intelligence, so by making it public now they raise too many doubts for the enemy to use it.

> the only ground combat scenario Israel really has to worry about is with Hezbollah

They invaded Gaza in 2014, killing 2,310 (of which 70% were civilians.)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War

True. But for a variety of political reasons within Israel, a ground invasion of Gaza is unlikely to happen again within the next 5 years, if ever. If it were going to happen, it would have happened in May. Also, Hamas has no ability to bring fighters into Israel proper, whereas Hezbollah poses a real threat of cross-border incursion. That's where the existence of some kind of advanced cloaking technology falling into Iranian hands becomes a concern for Israel. It wouldn't be very useful in street-to-street combat in Gaza, but in hills and fields along the Lebanese border it could cause a lot of problems for them.

I believe that portions of the enigma machine technology were patented and later reviewed for exploitation by the British.

https://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/enigma/patents/

this isn't particularly crazy technology that no one will be able to manufacture. Once you field it everyone else will copy it. From a benefit perspective you benefit from fielding it, but also controlling the patent in other countries where you can license/sell it to orgs you approve.

Enemy countries will always violate your patents and make their own, so might as well extract maximum benefit while you can.

Not for the company making it, Polaris Solutions. All the many countries have to buy it to keep up with each other.

..unless one does not plan to go at war with countries where it registered patents

Could they also prevent it from being made by competitors and then refuse to distribute it in those countries? If not denying it to those countries at least delaying it in bureaucracy?

Uh.

Patent registrations are public. Details about a registered patent in any country will be available to all countries worldwide.

It is also unlikely that a country would opt to abide by intellectual property treaties when at war.

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