A total of 5,784 patent applications remained subject to invention secrecy orders at the end of Fiscal Year 17, according to new data provided by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
The secrecy orders, issued under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, restrict disclosure of patent applications considered to be “detrimental to national security” if published.
That total number was up slightly from the 5,680 secrecy orders that were in effect a year earlier.
Most existing patent secrecy orders are renewed year after year.
In FY17, there were 132 new secrecy orders that were imposed, and 28 existing orders that were rescinded, according to the US PTO data. There were 39 new “John Doe” orders imposed on private inventors who sought to patent inventions in which the government has no property interest.
Most invention secrecy applies to inventions involving technology relevant to military applications, but the full scope of the invention secrecy program is not described in public documents.
Denice Ross, former U.S. Chief Data Scientist and Data Policy Institute lead at the Federation of American Scientists, will be honored for her stewardship of public data by the National Academy of Public Administration, where she has been named a Fellow.
Confirmation that the construction of the security perimeter and associated security infrastructure at RAF Lakenheath are still ongoing once again raises questions about whether U.S. nuclear weapons have already been deployed to the base.
Alaskans are sensibly pulling back from the vogue for bans and returning to a western tradition that has worked for more than half a century – one that welcomes innovation but also oversees it closely.
The strength of our nation’s data policy isn’t just in the rules we write, but in how effectively we translate those rules into a system that prioritizes the public good. Join us in this movement to design and build more resilient national data policies.