Japan To Pay Companies To Keep Sensitive Patents Secret (reuters.com) 28
Japan will compensate companies to keep secret patents with potential military applications under proposed legislation, the Nikkei reported on Sunday, without citing sources. Reuters: The patents under review in the proposed economic security legislation will include technology that can help develop nuclear weapons, such as uranium enrichment and cutting-edge innovations like quantum technology, the financial daily said.
Secret patents? (Score:2)
Other nations just call them trade secrets because they are 'patents' of the kind that one can violate with impunity.
Re:Secret patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a bit more complicated than that. They are patent-worthy tech that gets stamped "top secret" and takes a long time for it to make it into the patent system if ever. This is perhaps one of the reasons the patents relating to a Tic-Tac UFO are most dubious. The work done at Hanford or with the Blackbird didn't ever make it into the patent system and both probably are largely a gated community involving clearances.
This is why the guy who basically is the father of the missile program for China got tons of shit from America when he left after his time in America doing research for jet propulsion. Likewise, it's why so many Iranian nuclear engineers are found dead.
Trade secrets are what companies do but governments deal in a completely different domain of secrets. The proposed solution here likely has to do with putting the information behind a clearance and building a more capitalistic means to compensate these companies for essentially the government hoarding that information. Though in all actuality it likely will work in some degree like a trade secret in the sense that two companies could develop the same patentable design and potentially both get this level of governmental provisioning.
Re: Secret patents? (Score:4, Interesting)
Rocketry has been a history of copied or controversially obtained innovations. I mean China originated rocket technology and concepts such as multi-stage, that is not disputed. Then India made some improvements (such as metal rockets) that the British and Europe copied â" just look up Mysore Rockets. And then of course Robert Goddard whose ideas the Nazis improved upon greatly. And then the Nazi inventions were subsequently copied by us. And yeah we would not have gotten to the moon so quickly if we didnâ(TM)t have actual Nazis on the payroll such as Hubertus Strughold (a former Dachau concentration camp doctor who previously experimented on humans) who played a central role in designing pressure suit/life support systems on both the Gemini and Apollo, and Arthur Rudolph, rocket engine engineer and Saturn V program director formerly a boss at a Nazi work camp. He did get deported but not before getting too awards from NASA for his various contributions.
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More than fair but this kind of returns to the point of why they try to keep this stuff a security, to avoid military parity.
The whole Nazi's in the space program is pretty intense. Without them being significant leaders in the NASA program, it's likely history would of played out very differently. Nonetheless, the reason we got those scientists is because the Nazi's were defeated. During the war, I do not think any nation had much of anything comparable to the V-2 or the Nazi jet system and only after the
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Other nations just call them trade secrets
We have "born secret" [wikipedia.org]
protectionism is good China copyed alot of IP by b (Score:2)
protectionism is good China copyed alot of IP by being the cheap workshop for others
Re: protectionism is good China copyed alot of IP (Score:4, Insightful)
All nations have profiteered from stolen ideas. America was a major thief up until the 30s or 40s, but Britain has its share. Don't criticise others for copycat crimes unless you're willing for your nation to pay up.
In the case of Britain, it probably owes China a bob or two for stolen tea plants.
If it's OK for you, then it's OK for all. If it's not OK for all, it's not OK for you and I expect to see an agreement on recompense.
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All nations have profiteered from stolen ideas. America was a major thief up until the 30s or 40s
Then they stopped??
I recall a fairly recent case involving the NSA spying on Airbus to help Boeing.
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Well, you're right, they didn't stop, they just agreed to have laws that admitted it wasn't acceptable practice anymore. How much theft was reduced is obviously unclear as it's all covert now. The main thing was the acceptance that theft was wrong.
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That wasn't spying to steal technology, it was spying on contract negotiations. Still immoral, but not quite the same.
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Japan is particularly concerned with China's extensive maritime claims, claims that extend into what Japan considers its own EEZ (exclusive economic zone). China has not been historically shy about using military force to enforce questionable territorial claims, and it has built the largest navy in the world, surpassing the US in sheer numbers although still trailing it in ship tonnage and capability.
The PLA has almost twice the ship tonnage of Japan's Self Defense Forces and twice the number of aircraft.
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LOL. Besides the Diaoyu islands, which lie far closer to China/Taiwanese waters than Japan's main islands, and which China does have legitimate arguments for stating it's Chinese territory, exactly what part of Japan's EEZ does China claim? Do you mean the fact that BOTH Japan and China claim each other's EEZ because the amount of distance between China and Japan is less than 400nm, but both Japan and China are claiming the max total 200nm from their shore?
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China claims from it considers its territorial continental shelf, which extends well into Japan's EEZ as measured from the shore.
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I think you mean NM, unless you mean China and Japan are REALLY close.
Self-defeating (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire point of a patent is to establish that you are the inventor. By keeping it secret the only thing you do is ensure other inventors also have a rightful claim to have invented the patented item, thereby negating the purpose of the patent.
I don't see how this could possibly work in any sane fashion. These technologies would become akin to a legal minefield (invent X and get sued!) and therefore nobody will want to invest in developing them.
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invent X and get sued!
I believe we got it covered [wikipedia.org]
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They can just do the same thing as the US and prevent another company from suing them for reasons of state security.
So the company gets paid for keeping it secret and can't be sued for supplying the Japanese government with products using the invention (and perhaps the US government giving bilateral agreements).
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The US has classified what it considers sensitive patents since the 1951 passage of the Invention Secrecy Act.
If you hold a secret patent you still have exclusive rights to the idea, although your ability to exploit that idea commercially is limited. It would still allow you to prevent someone else from commercializing the idea for the term of the patent.
Had a similar scheme for many years in the UK (Score:3)
Vaults to the rescue. (Score:2)
Secret patents can be maintained by JPO if they are equipped to do so. The examiners will have to undergo the clearance procedures and the patents themselves never leave the vault.
Maybe they could (Score:2)
buy a controlling stock share of those companies and forbid them from going public with "sensitive" innovations.
They could do that through an investment vehicle called, for example, In-Q-Tel.
The US has had this for years (Score:2)
The US has had laws since the 50s (if not earlier) allowing the government to decide that certain things should be kept secret rather than allowing the patent to go through and be made public.