[HN Gopher] Japan to pay companies to keep sensitive patents secret
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Japan to pay companies to keep sensitive patents secret
Author : thunderbong
Score : 88 points
Date : 2021-12-26 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| numair wrote:
| 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
| skhr0680 wrote:
| 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 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.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"If, sitting in your garage/basement, you invent a tech
| covered by a secret patent then you will be getting a job
| offer."
|
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Or knocks on the door from a couple of agents informing
| you that you are doing something you should not be doing
| as a private individual. Surely, if you are, you must be
| a subversive which is the total point of the conversation
| you'd be having.
| seoaeu wrote:
| I mean, if you're developing a missile guidance system or
| something that you do _not_ intend to be used by your
| country 's military, then I'd hope you have a very good
| explanation of who you do intend to use said technology.
| And if not, "shut up and get lost" seems like a pretty
| mild reaction...
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Are people not remembering the issues with PGP?
| seoaeu wrote:
| The issue with PGP was that encrypted communications were
| classified as a munition, not the concept of export
| controls. There is no civilian use for an air-to-air
| missile guidance system. There are plenty of private
| individuals with legitimate reasons to use encryption
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > There is no civilian use for an air-to-air missile
| guidance system.
|
| 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.
| seoaeu wrote:
| It really shouldn't be very hard to tell whether a garage
| lab is a terror cell trying to shoot down passenger
| airlines, or a bunch of ornithologists trying to do
| better wildlife tracking. Honestly, I'm somewhat puzzled
| that people here seem to be refusing to acknowledge that
| the two can be distinguished
| FpUser wrote:
| >"if you're developing a missile guidance system"
|
| 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.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yesterday's top secret radar tech is today's telecom
| infrastructure. If we send goons to shut down every
| garage lab, we're hobbling ourselves and hitching our
| bandwagon to the ossified and crusty companies of
| yesteryear, the Ciscos and IBMs of the world that have
| degraded until they are ready to tip over the moment they
| get any real competition. Better to tip them over
| ourselves, so that we own the strong replacements, rather
| than let someone else do it for us and eat our lunch.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| This is also ignoring how the security system allegedly
| works in the US.
|
| 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."
| seoaeu wrote:
| "We're designing telecom infrastructure" is an
| explanation. I really don't see why my comment is being
| interpreted as calling for every garage lab to be shut
| down. Are people disputing that _military_ technology can
| be misused? That those dabbling in it should be
| accountable to the rest of society for taking reasonable
| steps to prevent that from happening? For at least not
| outright trying to pass it to foreign adversaries who
| intend to misuse it?
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| > friendly companies, those with the appropriate security
| clearances, still benefit from the shared knowledge.
|
| 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.
| hn8788 wrote:
| 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.
| dnautics wrote:
| Iirc this happened with encryption schemes. RSA maybe?
| bdowling wrote:
| It's illegal for a US inventor to file a patent application
| in a foreign country without either (a) obtaining a foreign
| filing license first, or (b) applying for a US patent and
| waiting at least 6 months. [0] The idea there is to give
| the Patent Office a chance to review the invention for
| national security.
|
| [0] https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s140.html
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yeah, you just have to deal with sunk costs and an IP
| rugpull. Great.
|
| I bet they don't even refund the patent fees.
| Brybry wrote:
| 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...
| skhr0680 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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.
| tapas73 wrote:
| Deterance, is also (kind of) defensive purpose.
| trasz wrote:
| Those patents are obviously void outside the country, though.
| [deleted]
| eljimmy wrote:
| 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 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.
| btilly wrote:
| 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.)
| trasz wrote:
| 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.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| 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.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| 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.
| mmsimanga wrote:
| 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/
| kragen wrote:
| African history is full of wars and empires though, for
| millennia. Africa wasn't always behind technologically;
| these letters I write English in are developed from
| Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Fibonacci learned decimal numbers
| in Africa. But most of Africa spent the first 250 years of
| the Industrial Revolution being colonized, which really
| impeded its development. Even before that, most of the
| great African empires had collapsed under the onslaught of
| the slave trade: not just for America but also Arabia,
| Turkey, Europe, and China.
| mmsimanga wrote:
| I specifically restricted my theory to sub Saharan
| Africa. Egypt and North Africa do indeed have history of
| technology and innovation. In sub Saharan African I don't
| even think the wheel was a thing before the colonisers
| arrived. I could be wrong but from all the history I have
| read and from speaking to old people we did have some
| iron works to make spears and arrows. No wheels, no
| bridges and no roads.
| kragen wrote:
| No wheels, except on the East Coast, but West Africa had,
| for example, drum telegraphs and (probably independently
| invented) iron smelting for 4500 years. Heliocentrism was
| mainstream in Mali centuries before Galileo. The
| Americans probably learned inoculation from Ghana.
| Subsaharan Africa wasn't at the same level of invention
| as Europe, China, and India even before the early modern
| ramp-up in the slave trade, but it wasn't nearly as far
| off as you'd extrapolate from looking at the ruins after
| 500 years of enslavement and colonialism.
| btilly wrote:
| Jared Diamond's theory in the book _Guns, Germs and Steel_
| is that trade, ideas, and technology develop and disperse
| along routes where agriculture flourished. The basic
| agricultural package which works from China to England does
| not work in sub-Saharan Africa. The Bantu people developed
| one that did work, but it developed a lot later, and there
| was a sufficient gap between the two to prevent significant
| commerce, flow of ideas, etc. The result is that Africa was
| technologically thousands of years behind.
|
| The accelerating technological dynamic that put Europe
| ahead of everyone else along the Silk Road had a different
| dynamic. One of whose key ingredients was the lack of any
| central authority who could suppress discoveries and lines
| of research for whatever political or religious reasons.
| And once that turned into a runaway train of progress,
| well, everyone was backwards compared to them!
| mmsimanga wrote:
| Interesting book. Thanks for sharing I will be sure to
| read it. My dad chaired the local history society for our
| tribe for a long time. I have been to some of these
| historical sites dating back about 100 years. I have
| always had an interest in the topic.
| archibaldJ wrote:
| > ... 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)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> 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.
| kragen wrote:
| If you use all your energy on Hummers (or commuter tanks?)
| you won't be able to keep building power plants. You have
| to invest a lot of your energy produced in building more
| energy production capacity.
| archibaldJ wrote:
| > ... Everyone starts driving giant vehicles. That should
| get our energy consumption up enough for Type 1.
|
| That sounds like optimizing for KPI to me, in which case
| we'll be doing it wrong.
|
| The only way to arrive there naturally is to have more
| efficient ways of generating energy (fusion, renewable,
| etc).
|
| > ... advanced civilization may decide not to use all the
| energy it theoretically could
|
| Energy generation & consumption (which are both tied to
| future prices, etc) always appear to be a game-theoretical
| optimization at geopolitcal and social-economical scales.
| Even in the current days (eg gazprom, nato, etc.)
|
| When we reach Type 1, we would have greatly reduced the
| cost of energy (resource-cost and enviromental-impact wise)
| and global economy will become more intervined and
| convoluted. The social-cultural implication would be
| fascinating too. Many existing status quos will crumble as
| the cost-to-transform skyrockets [1]. (Also: eg perhaps
| that's when crypto finally makes sense and become stable?)
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28331939
| mkl95 wrote:
| > 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.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| > 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Quantum navigation. Quantum accelerometers theoretically enable
| hyper-accurate guidance systems immune to external jamming.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_compass
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Missiles yes, but it is more practical for submarines. More
| accurate submarine navigation means they can navigate
| closer to the bottom/coast without using sonar and can fire
| ballistic missiles accurately without surfacing.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > Quantum accelerometers theoretically enable hyper-accurate
| guidance systems immune to external jamming
|
| Can one jam normal accelerometers? I don't see how.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I _think_ it 's rather that normal accelerometers aren't
| precise enough to replace GPS (well, radio/satellite based
| positioning systems), which are possible to jam.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Normal _guidance systems_ , which rely on non-accelerometer
| input, are vulnerable to external jamming.
| cabalamat wrote:
| Certainly GPS is, but I don't see how inertial or
| celestial are.
| mabbo wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| srvmshr wrote:
| 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
| [deleted]
| aaomidi wrote:
| 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.
| trasz wrote:
| Same way secret "security courts" are just what's called
| kangaroo courts when it happens outside the US. Yet another
| example of double standards.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| So how _exactly_ will they enforce these patents?
| admax88qqq wrote:
| Pretty easily? Just have a secret/private court.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| Rephrasing, how will these patents be licensed?
| detaro wrote:
| They're not, or only to entities covered under relevant
| military secret laws.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| Hedy Lamarr a famous movie actress invented fhss and the navy
| never paid her despite using her invention and making it secret.
| tdeck wrote:
| 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.
| mkl95 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| is this sarcasm? Because almost anything could be regarded as
| having military application in the modern world
| mkl95 wrote:
| The article mentions uranium enrichment and quantum tech.
| Not likely to affect some SaaS or a dating app.
| sorokod wrote:
| With the world's militaries spawning cyber warfare arms,
| "potentially military applications" my have a wide reach.
| Jansen312 wrote:
| 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.
| detaro wrote:
| > _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...
| olliej wrote:
| 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.
| koreanguy wrote:
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