From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Wed Jun 25 2003 - 08:06:49 MDT
Adrian Tymes writes:
> --- Brett Paatsch <paatschb@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> > But with this Secret Patent idea, based on a convo I
> > had with a
> > patent office guy in Australia, the would be
> > patenter subs their
> > application and if anything weaponish grabs the
> > attention of the
> > examiner, the examiner is obliged to shoot it off to
> > the the defence
> > department for the once over.
>
> I don't know about Australia, but the US PTO has
> safeguards against just that sort of thing - and
> explicit rules for when it's allowed, which for the
> most part sum up to, "nuclear weapons are
> unpatentable". (Says nothing about biotech, for
> instance, so that can't be appropriated as easily...)
I don't *know* the situation in detail with Secret Patents,
not because it is indeterminable, just because I haven't
put in sufficient time to understand it yet. I thought others
on the list might already have some insights and/or interest.
Given the size of the economic and intellectual engine that is
the USA, it is it's approach to patents and IP that is likely
to have the greatest influence on the realisation times of
technologies that most transhumanists are interested in.
Making nuclear weapons (technology) unpatentable to Joe
Public is not surprising. And in comparison biotech seems
relatively benign, but I can imagine that an argument could be
made that publishing details in patents concerned with nanotech,
quantum computing and especially cryptography, *could*
have military and national security implications and not be
in the national interest.
Because export prohibitions on cryptography seemed to
have had little effect in the case of Phil Zimmerman and PGP
I will be interested to see if the DoD or NSA have some
means to block dissemination of technological information
(such as in secret patents) in quantum cryptography.
On nanotech, I think, I recall reading that the Foresight
Institute has been involved in liaison work aimed at shoring
up incentives to encourage nano designs. Good proactive
stuff if true. I hope it can head off pressure to over-legislate.
- Brett Paatsch
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