Secrecy Orders, Inventors and Patents There has been a lot of talk about 3D printers lately. Some have been good and maybe even incredible, and some not so good. It seems every great invention has a dark side to it. In the case of 3D printing the devices have shown how useful they can be. It has been said a 3D printer could replace an entire compartment of spare parts on a spacecraft traveling to Mars or the moon. The idea would be to print any parts they might need. 3D printers do not only have to print in plastic. There is an entire list of materials which can be used in the printer. Let me give you an example, you can even print in stainless-steel using a stainless-steel powder. There has been a lot of talk about using a 3D printer to create housing on other planets and the material which would be used would come from the planet. The dark side of the invention is it can print things we don’t want some people to have such as guns, bombs and other destructive devices along with drug paraphernalia. I have heard many rumors over the years about devices which would be extremely beneficial to our health and well being which were never allowed to be produced because the government found out they could be used as weapons with a little conversion. I have mentioned the fact before that our government can take a patent away from someone in the name of the national defense. Some inventors have complained this was only done to them to help some companies. Since this is a secretive action there is no way to know who is right and who is wrong when this happens unless we know what the invention is and what are the dangerous aspects of it. It has been estimated over 5,000 patents have been subject to secrecy orders by the government. A man developed a breakthrough in wireless communications years ago. Supposedly the invention would have allowed greater security while making it easier to communicate. The Department of Defense hit the invention with what is known as a secrecy order and that was the end of that. The invention was called a national security threat. This not only stopped the inventor from patenting his invention it also prevented him from talking to anyone about it. Years later he finally got the secrecy order lifted but by that time technology had passed him by and it was too late to try and commercialize the product. What made this invention dangerous? It would only be guesswork trying to figure this one out. In 2014 two inventors who had been hit with a secrecy order which was revoked some time later sued the government. Their complaint alleged it was unconstitutional and went against free speech since it prevented inventors from speaking about their inventions. They also claimed they had been deprived of their property without due process and wanted compensation. The court ruling seemed to be completely one sided because the court said since the secrecy order had been lifted that basically they had no case, but the government settled with them for a small sum. Amazingly one device which had been subject to a secrecy order for ten years actually had it finally lifted and was granted a patent. I don’t know if the device had any value anymore but I do know what it was for. It was a barrier against electromagnetic radiation. It supposedly had a use with a radar dome and maybe other devices. NewScientist published an article in 2010 which stated the United Kingdom had three times as many patents being kept secret as the United States. The article went on to say there were nine secrecy orders issued for every 10,000 patent applications in the UK. There has been a lot of talk about secrecy orders being placed on some Nikola Tesla inventions. They weren’t called secrecy orders in those days so let’s just say he was prevented from making some inventions public. The Invention Secrecy Act was created in 1951 but Tesla had many talks with the government before and during World War II about weapons. Famously he stated we didn’t need nuclear weapons because he could send electricity toward any area and kill everyone within a certain distance. Many thought the tower he built at Wardenclyffe had been responsible for the explosion at Tunguksa in Siberia, Russia. They presumed it was caused by Tesla trying out his invention. One has to wonder how many useful inventions there are which could have helped us. There had been talk about a special type of X-ray machine which was far superior to anything we have now. The story goes it was capable of detecting the slightest of medical problems but there was another side to the invention. One of the parts used could have increased the power of certain weapons and when the military noticed this they decided they would never allow the machine to make it to the market. You can understand why a government wouldn’t want an advanced radar jamming device to go on the market or even an improved laser aiming device. When does the government go to far with secrecy orders? One inventor filed for a patent in 1936 long before the secrecy act yet his invention was placed under restrictions and it wasn’t until the year 2,000 until it was released. What was this earth-shattering device? It was a cryptograph machine so out of date as have become useless decades before. It seems a review of the system for issuing secrecy orders and how long they stay in effect is needed. It is one thing to issue a secrecy order and another to hold on to something for 60 years before releasing it.
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