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Patents Science

The Rush To Patent the Atomic Bomb 160

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can-you-sue-a-glowing-man dept.
dooling writes "In case you were thinking of building your own atom bomb, you may want to weigh your intellectual property liability. It seems there are over 2000 patents covering the atom bomb. To avoid publishing the patents, a central tenet of the patent system, "the project made use of an obscure law whereby patent applications could be filed but no one would actually look at them or evaluate them. They would just be stamped secret and stored in a vault at the patent office." The irony here is that while all the patents were essentially stored in the same place at the patent office and written to be understandable by any engineer, the Manhattan Project worked diligently to compartmentalize knowledge, using code names for just about all aspects of the project and keeping tight security on all information. It seems the patents were filed to give the U.S. government an essential monopoly on the burgeoning nuclear industry and protect it against others who might patent similar technologies later."
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The Rush To Patent the Atomic Bomb More

The Rush To Patent the Atomic Bomb

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  • Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:04AM (#22904482) Homepage
    If I'm building an atomic bomb, the threat of being hit by a patent lawsuit seems somewhat lower than, say, the threat of being bombed into a metaphor.

    Plus, this is just the patent office. Now if the _IRS_ were involved...

    • Mutually Assured Patent Destruction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:17AM (#22904562) Homepage Journal
      If I've got an atomic bomb, I'm not going to pay any attention to your patent lawsuit.

      As should be pretty obvious from all the other people who got atomic bombs.

      Obvious to anyone, except evidently the retarded capitalists, lawyers or bureaucrats who shared the most secret and dangerous info in the world with an office whose primary mission is publishing technical info, for no use whatsoever except increasing the risk of proliferating the weapons.

      Patent dementia. The kind of thing communists mean when they say "capitalists will sell the rope for the nooses to hang them".

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Nathrael ( 1251426 )
        Well, you got a point about saying it's wrong to hand over technical informations, but the hard thing is not _how_ to build an atomic bomb, it's rather to get hand on refined uranium - most of the major terrorist fractions/rogue governments/other groups already possess at least the basic knowledge to build a basic nuclear bomb like Fat Man.

        • Re:Mutually Assured Patent Destruction (Score:5, Informative)

          by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Saturday March 29, 2008 @11:15AM (#22905310) Homepage Journal
          I think you're thinking of Little Boy. Fat Man was the plutonium-implosion bomb detonated over Nagasaki, and those are hard to get right. Little Boy was the gun-type uranium bomb detonated over Hiroshima, and you're right, those are absurdly easy to build if you can get the refined uranium.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Adambomb ( 118938 )
            Hope no one tells them about neutron bombardment and enriching techniques...

            It's happened before [dangerousl...tories.org] heh

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by HUADPE ( 903765 )
              The issue is getting enough to get a critical mass. A backyard reactor will get you maybe a few grams. Want more than that and you need a containment facility (or you'll die trying to make it). Build a containment facility and some US government bombers will be heading in your direction.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mdwh2 ( 535323 )
        Patent dementia. The kind of thing communists mean when they say "capitalists will sell the rope for the nooses to hang them".

        You can't blame capitalism for patents though. Patents are a Government granted and enforced monopoly. In fact, I'd say they're very un-capitalist, in that the state steps in to control the free market, and preventing private individuals from manufacturing (effectively taking away the means of production from them). Patents are about Government control of the market and means of prod

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
          Well, I can't blame "capitalism", because it's an economic system, not a person. But I can blame some capitalists, especially the monopoly capitalists who are the most extreme capitalists. They love a state-created (and defended) monopoly, which they don't even have to pay much to create or to defend.

          A monopoly capitalist with the noose patent would try to stop you from hanging them by pricing the license out of reach, but if you could pay it they'd take it.

          The most extreme capitalists hate a "free market"

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by mdwh2 ( 535323 )
            "Monopolists" might be a better term, but why not just be specific and blame "People who support patents", rather than trying to brand them capitalists, "monopoly capitalists", communists or whatever else?
            • Because calling them just "people who support patents" doesn't tell the whole story, and is kinda tautological. Monopolies are a part of capitalism, though an extreme one. The problem with patents are they're capitalist monopolies, and some people who are OK with that forced the registration of secret atomic plans, which was idiotic. Monopoly capitalists are often that kind of self-threateningly idiotic. So it's worthwhile to connect those dots by calling them that.
    • You don't need to know the contents of any of those patents to build a fission bomb, it's easy! I can tell you the details from the top of my head if you want me to. The problem is to get enough fission material and to be able to buy the equipment needed like milling machines, furnaces, explosives, detonators for explosives etc.

      The areas where you need to access these patents would be if you wanted to maximize the yield, to build multi stage thermonuclear devices etc. But for a small fission device, none

    • If I'm building an atomic bomb, the threat of being hit by a patent lawsuit seems somewhat lower than, say, the threat of being bombed into a metaphor.

      You wouldn't be violating the patents (the unexpired ones, that is) if you only built the device for research anyway.

    • Going out on a limp there - but maybe they thought: "Ok, we are developing all kinds of cool technology here - some of it is for military use only, some of it may be for dual use though. This technology has been developed with the tax money of the US - the benefits therefore should belong to the citizens of the US. So let's file patent applications for some of the interesting stuff. Obviously now it's all top-secret, but for some of the things there may be commercial uses in a few years time. If we just fil

  • Where's the editor? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:05AM (#22904484)

    To avoid publishing the patents, a central tenant of the patent system,
    The word is tenet, as in canon, rule, orthodoxy, creed, etc. I think.

  • So (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrazeeCracker ( 641868 ) on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:07AM (#22904498) Homepage

    It seems the patents were filed to give the U.S. government an essential monopoly on the burgeoning nuclear industry and protect it against others who might patent similar technologies later.

    So the cold war was really just about patent infringement?
    • That patents developed from government-sponsored research should belong to the public (i.e. the government), and not to the companies doing the research?
      • Um, the public isn't the government, it's the people [usconstitution.net]. I don't mind the government handling the bookkeeping on public assets, with proper oversight and reporting, of course, but I'm just a footsoldier in the tin foil hat brigade...

    • Like it really matters. So which one of you people are going to be the first to file for a patent on an atomic bomb. I don't know about the rest of you fuckers but I got this thing about having my door kicked down by the feds and getting ass raped in a federal prison.

      http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/index.html [nuclearweaponarchive.org] - Favorite website

  • Six Party talks (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:08AM (#22904500)
    Next up in the North Korean six Party talks:

    USA: But we patented it, you're building the bomb in violation of our intellectual property!

    North Korea: Well now that's finally a sound argument. We'll stop then. Have a nice day.

    *white peace doves are sent flying*

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tuoqui ( 1091447 )
      All the US can do is try to stop importing of atomic bombs, then again by then it may be too late.

      • All the US can do is try to stop importing of atomic bombs, then again by then it may be too late.

        I have a mental image of a security guy floating next to metal detector at 80 000 feet asking the rapidly approaching ICMB warhead to remove its shoes.

        • A better picture would be customs inspectors checking shipping containers at a port.
          • but lets be honest if they found an unlicensed device with that much radioactives in it i'm sure they could stop it for that reason alone, no need for the patents.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by confused one ( 671304 )

              You miss the point. The cheapest ICBM of all: The standard 40' shipping container.

              Line shipping container with shielding (reduces neutron signature)

              install bomb in container

              Set bomb to detonate when container is opened

              Put container on ship, bound for foreign port.

              wait for boom.

              If you detonate a nuclear weapon in a port city, you're likely in a major city where you could do a lot of harm to people, property and logistical capability of the target country.

              If I were a small country with, say, 5 crude a

  • Terrorism (Score:5, Funny)

    by erikina ( 1112587 ) <eri.kina@gmail.com> on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:08AM (#22904504) Homepage
    It's good to finally see the patent system serving a purpose. Protecting us from nuclear terrorists. There's no way they couldn't infringe at least one patent!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )
      No, but it does help in that no one can ever SEE the patents to get ideas from.

  • Secret patent? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MichailS ( 923773 ) on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:12AM (#22904522)
    How does this work?

    "You are infringing on my patent, the nature of which I can't disclose. Hand over money!"

    • Re:Secret patent? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:28AM (#22904634)

      How does this work?

      "You are infringing on my patent, the nature of which I can't disclose. Hand over money!"
      SCO lasted five years with that line alone.

      • new category? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nten ( 709128 )
        The parent isn't funny, and while insightful probably fits, I think a category of depressing should be an option.
      • Moderators, where is the "+1 Sad-but-true" option?

    • Re:Secret patent? (Score:4, Informative)

      by sir_eccles ( 1235902 ) on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:40AM (#22904702)
      In the UK at least, it works thusly... Every single patent application goes through one special office with a locked door and a big heavy safe to be vetted for National Security purposes. Most things will just get a cursory glance but if you mention stuff like radar, munitions, nuclear power etc it will get a closer look to see if it poses a risk. It may or may not then get published. Still gets searched and examined I think. I would assume any infringement proceedings would take place in closed session.
      • I believe that same process happens in the US.
    • How does this work?

      Well:

      The scientist quoted in the article, Philip Morrison, was still alive. So Wellerstein called him up. "He told me yes there was a patent, and he had to sign over his rights to it," Wellerstein says. "He was supposed to be paid a dollar, and they never paid him." Morrison died a few weeks after that call.

      Remember he had a dispute with them over a single dollar...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by qbzzt ( 11136 )
      "You are infringing on my patent, the nature of which I can't disclose. Hand over money!"

      Not exactly. Probably the purpose of those patents was so that after the war was over somebody authorized would decide which technologies can be declassified for civilian use.
  • pay up before you kill us

    • Take that Terrorists! Pay up before you kill us
      OBL: Well, we wanted to attack America and destroy an entire city, but the licensing fees were too high!
  • What about when the patent runs out? Why even patent it at all, and risk the information being leaked. Better to just keep it secret. It's not like anybody building a nuclear bomb is worried about getting charged with patent infringement.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Hal_Porter ( 817932 )
      It sounds like they were more interested in having prior art to invalidate someone else's future patents in future rather than the patents themselves. A bunch of documents stored at the patent office would be great for this since they obviously couldn't take the usual prior art route of publishing. Getting a patent would be bad too, since that would be published.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by zappepcs ( 820751 )
        What would make you think that the US Government would halt their work because someone had a patent on it? They would simply declare it a state secret and continue. They didn't need anyone's permission to invade Iraq. The whole thing is a big bizarre. I think it was just misguided thinking at the time, or perhaps those involved thought that a patent would stop the government... my how times have changed.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Hal_Porter ( 817932 )
          The US government has defended the UK against the Nazis and Communists and defended Taiwan against the crypto fascist Chinese 'Communists'. Plus the've helped the world resist Islamofascism. I'm not going to say that they always did the optimal thing, but I do think that they acted mostly in good faith and mostly backed the right side. In fact I'm seriously considering moving to the US at some point. I think it's frankly bizarre that some US citizens don't see this, given that US foreign policy is decided d

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by wasted ( 94866 )

            The US government has defended the UK against the Nazis and Communists and defended Taiwan against the crypto fascist Chinese 'Communists'. Plus the've helped the world resist Islamofascism. I'm not going to say that they always did the optimal thing, but I do think that they acted mostly in good faith and mostly backed the right side. In fact I'm seriously considering moving to the US at some point. I think it's frankly bizarre that some US citizens don't see this, given that US foreign policy is decided d

      • future patents in future

        You'll be wanting the Department of Redundancy Department. Two doors down.

        Either that, or you're trying to distinguish between future patents in the past....

  • No more atomic weapon patents (Score:5, Informative)

    by CajunArson ( 465943 ) on Saturday March 29, 2008 @09:22AM (#22904606) Journal
    Yes this story is mostly for historical amusement, it has very little significance. Also, remember is applies to patents from the ORIGINAL Manhattan Project era. If you go out an invent a novel invention useful solely for atomic weapons you won't get a patent on it today: From the MPEP

    706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2] - 700 Examination of Applications
    706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2]

    A limitation on what can be patented is imposed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Section 151(a) (42 U.S.C. 2181(a)>)No patent shall hereafter be granted for any invention or discovery which is useful solely in the utilization of special nuclear material or atomic energy in an atomic weapon.

    The terms "atomic energy" and "special nuclear material" are defined in Section 11 of the Act (42 U.S.C. 2014).

    Sections 151(c) and 151(d) (42 U.S.C. 2181(c) and (d)) set up categories of pending applications relating to atomic energy that must be brought to the attention of the Department of Energy. Under 37 CFR >*1.14(d)1.14(d)Director))

        And for the record I AM a registered patent agent.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Daimanta ( 1140543 )

      And for the record I AM a registered patent agent.
      Yes, but you are not MY registered patent agent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Afecks ( 899057 )
      And for the record I AM a registered patent agent.

      That makes sense. You forgot to close your italics tag just like you forgot to REJECT ALL THOSE RIDICULOUS PATENTS!!!
  • The atomic bomb is many years ago. Anything patentable should either be prior art or has patent expired. And isn't to 'share knowledge' (many many years later) the patent system's objective? How can knowledge be shared if hidden? And how would patent infringement handled??
  • Did they remember to patent the detonation? Or the destruction? Fallout? Or would the mushroom cloud fall under copyright law?

  • The scientist quoted in the article, Philip Morrison, was still alive. So Wellerstein called him up. "He told me yes there was a patent, and he had to sign over his rights to it," Wellerstein says. "He was supposed to be paid a dollar, and they never paid him." Morrison died a few weeks after that call.
    I guess this closes the story in Feynman's autobiography about the dollar!

    About three months later, Smith calls me in the office and says,
    "Feynman, the submarine has already been taken. But the other three are
    yours." So when the guys at the airplane company in California are planning
    their laboratory, and try to find out who's an expert in rocket-propelled
    whatnots, there's nothing to it: They look at who's got the patent on it!
    Anyway, Smith told me to sign some papers for the three ideas I was giving
    to the government to patent. Now, it's some dopey legal thing, but when you
    give the patent to the government, the document you sign is not a legal
    document unless there's some exchange, so the paper I signed said, "For the
    sum of one dollar, I, Richard P. Feynman, give this idea to the
    government..."
              I sign the paper.
              "Where's my dollar?"
              "That's just a formality," he says. "We haven't got any funds set up to
    give a dollar."
              "You've got it all set up that I'm signing for the dollar," I say. "I
    want my dollar!"
              "This is silly," Smith protests.
              "No, it's not," I say. "It's a legal document. You made me sign it, and
    I'm an honest man. There's no fooling around about it."
              "All right, all right!" he says, exasperated. "I'll give you a dollar,
    from my pocket!"
              "OK."
              I take the dollar, and I realize what I'm going to do. I go down to the
    grocery store, and I buy a dollar's worth -- which was pretty good, then --
    of cookies and goodies, those chocolate goodies with marshmallow inside, a
    whole lot of stuff.
              I come back to the theoretical laboratory, and I give them out: "I got
    a prize, everybody! Have a cookie! I got a prize! A dollar for my patent! I
    got a dollar for my patent!"
              Everybody who had one of those patents -- a lot of people had been
    sending them in -- everybody comes down to Captain Smith: they want their
    dollar!
              He starts shelling them out of his pocket, but soon realizes that it's
    going to be a hemorrhage! He went crazy trying to set up a fund where he
    could get the dollars these guys were insisting on. I don't know how he
    settled up.
  • Saddam Hussein really was working on Weapons of Mass Destruction - up until the first Gulf War at least.

    I read a Scientific American article (sorry, I don't have a reference) about what weapons inspectors had uncovered, including copies of the declassified patent for an improvement to the Calutron.

    Calutrons are large mass spectrometers used to refine Uranium. They are very simple in principle, but in practice they work very poorly. At first the Manhattan project tried to improve them - resulting in th

  • It'll be a brave lawyer who threatens North Korea with patent violation. ;) The nuclear chain reaction was patented in the UK in 1934 by Leo Szilard. To guarantee secrecy it was later transferred to the British Admiralty, but by 1938, Szilard had lost faith that chain reactions were feasible and recommended the patent be withdrawn. In January 1939, when he learned that fission had been observed in uranium, Szilard sent an urgent telegram to the Admiralty telling them to disregard the cancellation. I'm not
    • If memory serves, the Joliot-Curies also secretely patented the nuclear pile and nuclear bomb in 1939 in France. They buried much of the material when the Germans arrived, and retrieved it after the war which allowed the french atomic pile ZOE to run as early as 1949. There was some kind of deal with the US about the patents.
    • Somehow I don't think money was the first thing on Szilard's mind when he wrote that letter to FDR initiating the Manhattan project. And somehow I don't think military and intelligence agencies give a damn about intellectual property when war or national security are on their minds.
  • You develop a brand spanking new technology, say one that allows a government to instantly disarm the entire population of another country and cause the inhabitants to welcome your soldiers by throwing flowers at their feet.

    Since other countries just might want to utilize this invention, ignoring all IP infringements, following the normal patent process of publishing is not very practical.

    You at the same time, do not want your competitors to be able to use your IP to underbid you, therefore you want to pate

  • Making of the Atomic Bomb (Score:4, Informative)

    by dekkerdreyer ( 1007957 ) <dekkerdreyer AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday March 29, 2008 @10:01AM (#22904860)
    The reason for patenting ideas about the Manhattan Project are well explained in The Making of the Atomic Bomb [amazon.com] by Richard Rhodes which is a fantastic read. Nearly 1000 pages and Amazon is selling it for less than $15. The covers the recent history of modern science better than any textbook I've found.
  • What a brilliant Republican contingency plan! In the (likely) event that the Democrats retake the White House, the trial lawyers who fund the Democratic Party will demand the (military?) enforcement of the patents that the Iranian theocracy is breaking! Absolute genius!

    (j/k, I think...)
  • You mean all that info is stored somewhere in a Patent Office?. I thought you had to break into some maximum security complex to get at it, and then just to a part of it. But there, in some dusty patent office, there is that lot of interesting info. Reminds me of the end scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

  • If you think the law is silly, here is why it exists: A government contractor develops a product, on their own(w/o being paid directly by the government), that has classified applications, the government can give you a contract to work more with it, but in the process classify the product. So you can still get a patent but its for classified work. An important note is that if you are under contract from the government, nothing you do for that contract can be work done towards a patent. This is so the govern

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Perhaps. But if I develop technology with my own funds, why would I subsequently seek US government funding if I risk having my work classified and its potential market limited?

      Back before Globalization, companies probably had no alternatives. But today, I'd be better off shopping around for the best jurisdiction for IP protection and getting a patent there. I'd assign it to a foreign holding company and then offer to sell it to the US gov't through a US subsidiary. That way, my parent company could sell

  • I guess ... (Score:2, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 )
    ... this is why we haven't seen an Apple iBomb yet.
  • they spent my taxpayer money on this? hmm. i guess it is probably ok that private companies are not making bombs. the government should instead classify the patents relating to "explosives" as illegal for anyone to own, including the government. we don't need nuclear bomb patents. conventional weapons are plenty.
    • then no, they didn't spend your money on this. You do realize that private companies do make bombs? that there are very few 'government' manufacturing facilities, right?
      • A subsidiary of the company I work for makes things that go boom, for the U.S. military. Typically the government assembles components made by contractors. I have done work at a national lab where we essentially had to design, prototype, build and test the equipment ourselves, since it was purpose built for an accelerator.
  • The PhDs involved need to patent and publish. It's really that simple.
  • They blundered quite a bit when it was discovered that the design of the U-boats that Germans used in WWI came from the patents filed by an American engineer.
  • Clearly any of the patents on the early bomb designs have long since expired. Nitpicking the summary blurb.

  • The project made use of an obscure law whereby patent applications could be filed but no one would actually look at them or evaluate them.
    Just like normal patents! :)
  • What's the point of a secret patent? Isn't the point of patents to prevent infringement of the creator's intellectual property? How can somebody else possibly avoid infringing on that intellectual property if the fact that somebody owns that intellectual property is a secret?

    And does this open the door to lawsuits in which the defendant had no possible way of knowing that they were doing anything wrong? Scary.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Stickney ( 715486 )
      In answer to your questions, allow me to clarify this highly misleading quote from the summary:

      'To avoid publishing the patents, a central tenet of the patent system, "the project made use of an obscure law whereby patent applications could be filed but no one would actually look at them or evaluate them. They would just be stamped secret and stored in a vault at the patent office."'

      Top-secret government projects, like the Manhattan Project and the F-117 Nighthawk are, in fact, documented at the USPO in a p
  • who patented chain-reaction in England and assigned the patent to the Admiralty as World War II was getting underway.

    yes, the nuclear chain-reaction is patented.
  • Dictator: I am going to build nukes! All other countries will given into my demands! Get on it.
    Defense Secretary: Uh yeah, little problem here.
    Dictator: What? We got the uraniam & stuff.
    Defense Secretary: No, it's not that.
    Dictator: Don't worry! Bush is busy in Iraq. What?
    Defense Secreatary: Uh, it's about the patents. We legally can't build one.
    Dictator: Oh darn, guess we won't be building one. We still have those bio-weapon plans around?
  • I saw the Headline and thought "Rush to patent the atomic bomb? What would the top Canadian power trio want with the rights to atomic weaponry?" But of course, I'd forgotten that they probably want to update their light show for their current Snakes and Arrows tour (part 2).

    that'll be it.

    "..and the things that he fears is a patent to be held against him"

    read what article?
  • I'm sure that the random third world dude trying to put together an A-bomb is going to say "oh fuck, it's patented" and throw his hands up in dispair... :|

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