If I re-invent/re-discover the tech behind a secret patent, can I be sued for patent infringement, despite the patent being non-public? What's the point of granting patents for this?
If, sitting in your garage/basement, you invent a tech covered by a secret patent then you will be getting a job offer. If you market that tech then you will probably be arrested for dealing in weapons or other heavily-controlled material. Building missile guidance systems or uranium enrichment centrifuges is not something done by home tinkerers.
Or being told to shut up and get lost. And can't sue back because the lawsuit will be dismissed on the basis of national security.
You sound like KGB. Person can invent tech for what them thinks is a totally peaceful purpose and have no idea that it has high military value in some specific field. Fucking witch hunt attitude.
People say things like this and then it turns out to be useful for ornithologists who want to use drones to tag wild birds.
You never know what something is useful for until somebody uses it for that.
Then all the terrorists you encounter are carrying ornithology equipment because their organization's lawyers told them to and/or actual ornithologists go to prison because they also bought some fireworks for independence day or have a cousin who lives in Iran.
It's based on contracts. Before the government will give you classified information, you agree not to share it except under particular terms.
It's why the New York Times can publish the Pentagon Papers even though they're classified. They never agreed not to.
But now people want to pretend there is some separate "national security" that overrides the First Amendment in cases of excessive government embarrassment even for people who never agreed not to publish whatever they want to.
Somebody tell me where in the constitution it says "Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech except when the government wants to keep something a secret."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798
NYT gets away with it because they'd probably get off on a freedom of press defense, but the DoJ doesn't want to turn grey legal theory into case law. It's more useful to leave the possibility open that it won't go that way as a cudgel. But in the general case, national security restrictions to freedom of speech have passed judicial muster.
In other words, it's plausibly unconstitutional.
It's also kind of hilarious that the specific thing you're not allowed to disclose is how cryptosystems work, which is the thing all cryptographers agree doesn't have to be a secret in order to be secure or else your cryptosystem is completely broken and shouldn't be used.
And I was wrong, it's hit the supreme court in NYT vs US. The majority opinion is a purely press freedom argument, with a joint press freedom/speech freedom argument being a minority concurring opinion.
There's plenty of case law that the government can stifle speech for national security purposes, and it's not limited to signed contracts for enforcement.
That case is talking about freedom of the press for the obvious reason that the parties there are the New York Times and Washington Post; print publications. Where are you getting the idea that the same wouldn't apply to freedom of speech?
It's kind of a bizarre distinction in modern society regardless. Speech and press were historically different. Speaking you did in front of a crowd, the press was in print. Today both happen over the internet. Are we supposed to treat it differently based on whether your website contains text or audio/video? Why?
> There's plenty of case law that the government can stifle speech for national security purposes
In which case did the Supreme Court say that?
Because the concurring, but minority opinion is a joint press freedom and speech freedom argument, but the majority of the court didn't agree with the argument, hence it being a minority concurring opinion.
> In which case did the Supreme Court say that?
For one example of many, Near v Minnesota.
"No one would question but that a government might prevent actual obstruction to its recruiting service or the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops."
And what if I am developing a generic guidance system and somehow figured out the way to do everything with 1mm precision? It has immense value for civil use. Same for military. I would have very good explanation on how I intend to use it for peaceful purpose.
But access to classified information isn’t just granted by a clearance, you also require need to know. This is to prevent (in theory) anyone with a clearance from looking at every piece of classified info they feel like, which would be an operational security risk.
Having a pool of classified patents that are shared freely with only cleared people working at defense contractors would violate that safeguard.
I bet they don't even refund the patent fees.
Some government contracts will assign such spontaneous discoveries to the government with some incentive on the contract for patents produced.
Without the patent system, some discoveries would simply be forgotten about or remain in one engineers head - unfortunately the patent world has become fairly bloated with minimally inventive discoveries being written up by lawyers.