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Comment on YSK: The Invention Secrecy Act is a US federal law authorizing the government to suppress disclosure of certain inventions for reasons of national security. 6,543 inventions are currently suppressed.

mrductape@eviltoast.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

Anyone want to bet that there are inventions that are great but would cost some people serious money and that’s why we’re not seeing them?

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Manjushri@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Not taking that bet. From the linked wikipedia page.

According to reporting in Wired and Slate, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has at times considered applying secrecy orders to inventions deemed disruptive to established industries.

You may be sure that there are times when they did more than consider it.

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W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
It looks like they fuck over inventors.

Most of these appear to be for government projects such as with the Department of Defense and the NSA.

Sometimes, a regular invention outside of government contacts gets labeled with this and the government don’t pay for it. The inventor isn’t allowed to talk about it so they get fucked out of any income.

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