
NSA patents filed - cryoshon
https://medium.com/silk-stories/behind-the-nsa-e0bf2c3a40c0
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CyberDildonics
Why is a government agency funded from tax dollars of its citizens filing
secret patents to own algorithms?

This is absurd.

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dogma1138
No it's not and most Government agencies do the same for classified and
unclassified projects for obvious reasons.

The NSA isn't special they just go out of their way to make is appear to be,
DARPA also files secret patents, and so most defense contractors if the
project is classified.

As for patents, well universities get the rights for patents for research
funded with public funding and conducted by students, heck even NASA and the
EPA file for patents and so does every other agency.

In most cases agencies have a Technology Transfer Program (TTP) that enables
them to transfer their technology and license their patents (often for free)
to US industry.

The NSA files for patents sure, but they aren't making money on them in most
cases what they do often do is ensure that US industry remains on top because
US patents still matter quite a bit and when anyone attempts to file a similar
patent the NSA is granted the patent based on their earlier filing which is
then more often than not is transferred to the US industry through their TTP.

And whats exactly absurd here? Your money has been already spent, would you
rather some one else (just as likely to be a non-US for-profit company) would
get that patent instead? We can debate patents all year long but claiming this
is some sort of a unique case or misuse / abuse of power is well as you put it
absurd.

P.S.

If you are interested here is their latest catalog, lets not treat that blog
post as some form of actual investigative journalism.
[https://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/tech_transfers/nsa_techn...](https://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/tech_transfers/nsa_technology_transfer_program.pdf)

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CyberDildonics
It's absurd that it isn't always free and open.

Why would a patent from the government need to be licensed at all? Why would
there be a program that a company needs to go through to use research payed
for by taxes?

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dogma1138
Well again it's a completely different story, this isn't unique to the NSA,
and not unique to the USA.

And heck universities getting patents for research funded by public funds,
conducted by students which are supported by public grants isn't any
different, one might say is actually worse. And you also forget that many
companies will use public grants, as well as tax credit for R&D, governments
have quite a big reason to provide incentives for private companies using
public funds because the more you spend on R&D usually the better your economy
and society will be in the long run.

There is nothing in the law that prevents the US government from filing
patents, there's nothing in the law of most countries to prevent government
agencies / government owned organizations for filing patents (before the royal
postal service was "privatized" it was the largest patent holder in the UK
while being a government agency they sold off most of their patents when they
were privatized, same goes for British Rail, and British Telecom).

If you want something worse then well most medical patents today are more or
less publicly funded, drug companies are often paid by the government to find
drugs which then they can later patent, heck if they are doing it "right" then
they it's also likely that they'll use a public university to do the research
for them while maintaining the filing rights for any patents for true double
dipping into your pocket.

