Japan to pay companies to keep sensitive patents secret

https://www.reuters.com/technology/japan-pay-companies-keep-sensitive-patents-secret-nikkei-2021-12-25/

by thunderbong • 5 years ago

118 85 5 years ago

reuters.com

manuelabeledo2• 5 years ago

So how exactly will they enforce these patents?

admax88qqq• 5 years ago

Pretty easily? Just have a secret/private court.

manuelabeledo2• 5 years ago

Rephrasing, how will these patents be licensed?

tdeck• 5 years ago

I thought the whole idea of a parent was that you publicly describe your invention, and in return you get an exclusive right to manufacture it. If you don't want to publish, just keep the info as a trade secret. How does a secret patent work? A person wouldn't be able to tell if they're infringing on such a patent.

mkl953• 5 years ago

Japan will compensate companies to keep secret patents with potential military applications under proposed legislation

It seems like it's going to affect a relatively narrow niche.

ren_engineer• 5 years ago

is this sarcasm? Because almost anything could be regarded as having military application in the modern world

sorokod• 5 years ago

With the world's militaries spawning cyber warfare arms, "potentially military applications" my have a wide reach.

Jansen312• 5 years ago

Basically describe your invention vaguely. Government officials will see the details and decide award it. Nothing detail is published. This is not USA where freedom of information act doesn't apply. Enforcement of patents usually lies in the person or entities holding the patents. So if governments chose not to enforce the "publication" parts, that means it is up to patent holders to do so. For example Tesla open up their patents. Here Japan probably wants to protect their own companies from devalue their own IP and RnD helping copycats achieve similar result without the expenaive research part. Patent is just staking a limited period exclusivity with a requirement to describe publicly exactly how you do it. Remove that "publicly" and "exactly" won't negate the idea of patent. Enforcement might get some difficulties though.

detaro2• 5 years ago

This is not USA where freedom of information act doesn't apply.

FOIA requests are not going to get you actively classified patents in the US either...

sandworm1017• 5 years ago

Nothing new. This has been common in the US for decades. I'm actually rather surprised that this is new for Japan, which has a mature defense industry. They even produce their own air-to-air missiles, tech right at the heart of the matter.

https://www.upcounsel.com/classified-patents

"In 2017, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reported statistics that there were over 5,700 classified patents held by the United States government. These inventions are highly guarded under sensitive secrecy orders. The public may never know more about these classified inventions, but some once-secret patents included a laser-tracking system, a stronger net, and a warhead-production method.

Invention secrecy dates back to the 1930s, but exploded in the 1940s when nuclear weapon development became a highly classified topic. Under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, federal law prevented the disclosure of new technologies and inventions that may present a national security threat to the United States."

roblabla• 5 years ago

Wait, what's the point of a secret patent though? Like I get the point of keeping military innovations secret, but patents are supposed to be a trade where the government offers a limited-time monopoly on a technology, in exchange for making the secret sauce of said technology public.

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?

sandworm1017• 5 years ago

They aren't totally secret. Other companies in the field know about and can see them. The patents are just not made as public as normal patents. So friendly companies, those with the appropriate security clearances, still benefit from the shared knowledge.

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.

hn8788• 5 years ago

I forget where I read it, but my understanding is that the secret patent would become public if you try to publicly patent it. I don't know if there would be any compensation for you, but I don't think you'd have to deal with patent infringement.

lumost• 5 years ago

If a Lockheed engineer spontaneously discovers a defense technology, Lockheed can patent the tech and try to sell it independently or license the patent to another firm.

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.

Brybry• 5 years ago

Japan is a bit different in that its constitution renounces the ability to make war[1], including maintaining forces to make war.

They sidestep around the issue (probably a bit illegally) with their self-defense forces but there are some purely offensive technologies, like nuclear weapons, that even that sidestepping has yet managed to work around.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Cons...

skhr06802• 5 years ago

Japanese politicians in the past have made the case that having a nuclear deterrent would be legal, and the country has the material, tools, and knowledge to build a MIRV ICBM immediately if TSHTF. In general, the population is against war and nuclear weapons because of what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I think that would change quickly if China invades Taiwan (for example).

emilfihlman• 5 years ago

purely offensive technologies, like nuclear weapons

This is absolutely not true. Nuclear weapons have many non-weapon usages, and they would be really good for those, too. Like excavations, shutting down runaway oil well fires, protecting against stuff striking earth, etc.

trasz3• 5 years ago

Those patents are obviously void outside the country, though.

eljimmy• 5 years ago

I've often wondered how much further along we could be as a species if we shared all knowledge with each other and worked towards a common goal instead of competing and warring with each other.

Though I suppose you could argue there would be less incentive and competition and drive to innovate if that were the case. Still interesting to wonder about.

archibaldJ2• 5 years ago

... if we shared all knowledge with each other and worked towards a common goal ...

I believe that will happen before we reach Type 2 at the Kardashev scale.

The question now is how do we reach Type 1 asap (hopefully within the next 50 years)

sandworm1017• 5 years ago

> how do we reach Type 1 asap

Kardashev is a measurement of energy access/use. So we build lots of new power plants. Everyone starts driving giant vehicles. That should get our energy consumption up enough for Type 1. It's an old scale that doesn't acknowledge that a very advanced civilization may decide not to use all the energy it theoretically could.

sandworm1017• 5 years ago

Some knowledge is dangerous. Bomb making isn't very difficult. Any chemistry grad can manufacture explosives from commonplace chemicals. But we don't put the how-to guidebook in highschool libraries. We actively put hurdles in front of such knowledge to regulate its use.

trasz3• 5 years ago

Who is “we”, though? This information used to be available in school libraries in Poland, and didn’t result in anything dangerous. If “we” is US, then it’s obviously not working.

btilly2• 5 years ago

Let me give a more dramatic example. Using figures from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.

In 2019, 1.4 million US adults tried to kill themselves. 47,511 died. Why do so many survive? It is because information about effective ways to commit suicide exist but is not well disseminated. Men have a fraction of the suicide attempts of women, and yet commit suicide at several times the rate. Suicide rates are also unevenly distributed across races. By my understanding, the primary reason for these differences is that men and specific races are more likely to pick an effective suicide method.

Teenagers are particularly likely to be suicidal and grow out of it. As the parent of such a teenager, I'm perfectly OK with not disseminating knowledge about the most effective ways that she could try to kill herself with common household items.

(I'm also happy to disseminate the knowledge that the method you should never use is drinking anti-freeze. You will not kill yourself. You will destroy your liver and kidneys, and will make your life suck a whole lot more than it does already.)

Barrin92• 5 years ago

Ian Morris wrote a fairly provocative book a few years ago that argues that it is exactly war that drives this progress (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/20/war-what-is-it...).

Here in Germany we owe most of our modern institutions (one of the first healthcare systems, the national education system) to Prussia, in France the Napoleonic code was one of the most important reforms in history, and most of that nation-building was driven by militaristic nation-state competition. The Cold War is another example of course. He argues that war is the primary thing that pushes states to improve the welfare of their populations and it enables larger organization. Israel is probably another good example of a country whose innovation is effectively driven by survival.

I think you can make a decent case that the sort of post-Soviet stagnation, lack of reform or interest in taking care of pressing domestic issues, over-financialization etc.. was driven largely by being stuck in a unipolar system without competition.

mmsimanga3• 5 years ago

As an African I have always wondered how Sub Saharan Africa got left so far behind in terms of technology. One of my lay mans theories based on listening to older folk and the new maps showing just how big Africa is compared to other continents[1]. You can fit the US, Asia and most of Europe into Africa. Listening to older folk there were lots of migrations. If you had dispute with someone you just took your people and went off to find another spot to live. I theorize that we largely avoided wars therefore there was no need to innovate. Off course there are other things at play but I agree with you when you have to fight to survive in wars you put aside your differences as a country and you get to see true innovation. Its my theory.

[1]https://www.visualcapitalist.com/map-true-size-of-africa/

trompetenaccoun• 5 years ago

All life competes with one another for the limited resources that we have. Without this there would be little evolution so we might not be further at all, rather the opposite.

mkl953• 5 years ago

Japan will compensate companies to keep secret patents with potential military applications under proposed legislation
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.

It seems that they are basically asking companies to be quiet if they are making something for military use. Not sure about the quantum part.

sandworm1017• 5 years ago

Quantum navigation. Quantum accelerometers theoretically enable hyper-accurate guidance systems immune to external jamming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_compass

_nezo• 5 years ago

That sounds interesting. Iirc inertial navigation systems are also a key component in missiles that don't enable radar (and so reveal their presence) until they're right on the target ("pitbull"). I don't know how much of a limiter the INS is there, but it could possibly lead to more precise missiles with less warning time.

cabalamat3• 5 years ago

Quantum accelerometers theoretically enable hyper-accurate guidance systems immune to external jamming

Can one jam normal accelerometers? I don't see how.

resoluteteeth• 5 years ago

It seems that they are basically asking companies to be quiet if they are making something for military use. Not sure about the quantum part.

The US does that too, if you try to file a patent for something that has military applications.

https://slate.com/technology/2018/05/the-thousands-of-secret...

I'm not sure if the US even provides compensation like the Japanese government is going to.

srvmshr• 5 years ago

Looking at the article and all the points & counterpoints, it is seeming more like Japan government wants companies to keep inventions basically as trade-secrets and work out a financial arrangement for the promising ones. This arrangement is quite similar to The Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 in US

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_Secrecy_Act

numair• 5 years ago

It’s 3:30am in Tokyo, so I don’t have the time to explain just how insanely incompetent Japan Inc. is when it comes to protection of national defense secrets. Instead, I will leave you with this link to a press release the Japanese government put out on Friday afternoon, right before Christmas. Hopefully someone can translate and explain the unbelievably stupid situation it references.

https://www.mod.go.jp/j/press/news/2021/12/24c.pdf

skhr06802• 5 years ago

A MOD investigation found that hackers extracted 20,000 files from Mitsubishi Electric in January, 2020, and determined that 59 had sensitive information in them. The MOD issued a warning to them to improve their cyber security.

aaomidi• 5 years ago

TFW Patents are literally supposed to be there so you put out the blueprints but get protections for it.

Secret patents are an overreach of IP laws.

trasz3• 5 years ago

Same way secret “security courts” are just what’s called kangaroo courts when it happens outside the US. Yet another example of double standards.

samfisher83• 5 years ago

Hedy Lamarr a famous movie actress invented fhss and the navy never paid her despite using her invention and making it secret.

mabbo• 5 years ago

I can see understand idea of paying companies to keep an invention secret. But I'm annoyed at calling it a 'patent'.

The very nature of patents is that the government grants exclusivity of the invention to the inventor, so long as the inventor shares the invention with the world. That's why there were lawsuits about Viagra: Pfizer knew which compounds in it caused the effect, but their patent was vague and didn't specify. In Canada, the patent was voided over this.[0]

Calling it a 'secret patent' just confuses the idea of what a patent is meant to be.

[0]https://www.smartbiggar.ca/insights/publication/supreme-cour...

waterhouse• 5 years ago

Indeed, the word "patent" itself—to quote Wikipedia: "The word patent originates from the Latin patere, which means "to lay open" (i.e., to make available for public inspection). It is a shortened version of the term letters patent, which was an open document or instrument issued by a monarch or government granting exclusive rights to a person, predating the modern patent system."

Thus, a secret patent is a contradiction in terms.

olliej• 5 years ago

What? The entire point of a patent is that it’s public.

Things that are secret are called “trade secrets”.

My initial thought was the article had gotten confused and the gov was saying “leave this as a trade secret and we’ll compensate you if it gets leaked”

But it actually seems that they’re looking at patents as being pure license revenue driven and the compensation would be 20 years of licensing revenue.

But that’s not the only reason for parents. They are primarily intended as a way of having a legally enforced monopoly on something. So what happens in this system if you have a patent that gives you a competitive advantage, but another company works out what you’ve done, checks to see if you’ve patented it (which they won’t find), and then implements the technology themselves?

Licensing revenue may be significantly less than the benefits of being the only people able to use the tech.

authed• 5 years ago

In the name of wars... they hold progress back.

I once saw a simple rocket control method removed from Hackaday because of a similar reason. It was basically, motorized fins to control direction.

kw-maller• 5 years ago

Could be trickier than they think.

One of the NSA's original and continuous missions have been what they refer to as "technology retrieval", a fancy way of saying "theft and espionage". It should be pretty clear by now that their mission have influences on American technology, CPUs and operating systems being most relevant to this.

Since a few years back (mostly after the NSA and CIA leaks) I firmly believe that if you are using Intel or AMD CPUs and are running Windows or macOS, and if your computer is connected to the internet and can clearly be identified, then all and any information in it can be retrieved.

It's definitely a good thing that the Japanese still prefer keeping sensitive documents and paperwork on actual paper.

Japan to pay companies to keep sensitive patents secret

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