Anduril and Palantir Technologies (PLTR.O) are working together to develop software for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome anti-missile shield initiative, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The $185 billion Golden Dome missile defense project aims to build a space-based shield capable of intercepting ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, with hundreds of companies vying for a role in developing the shield.
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Palmer Luckey: “Stop patenting everything. Patents are Chinese instruction manuals.”
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You cannot have an enforceable secret patent. What happens under a secrecy order (37 CFR 5.2) is that the USPTO refuses to issue a patent for national security reasons. But @CTLaw will maybe correct me.
I think this is incorrect, or at least, it was in the past. Gordon Gould and his partners made a lot of money because the US Government imposed such a secrecy order.
Gould’s 20% share, and other stakeholders—generated over $100 million in total royalties from laser manufacturers
The larger point is that trade secrets are an alternative to patents — a much better one in my experience. Don’t patent is not the same as don’t protect your IP. Patents run out in 20 years; trade secrets can last much longer. Case-in-point: the Coca Cola Company.
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That was under a long gone legal system in a long gone world.
Now, the effect of a secrecy order is almost always going to be detrimental.
Under that system, the patent term was 17 years from grant. So something that delayed grant likely pushed the lifespan out to a time when the market would be even greater. No longer. At best you now can recoup up to 5 years after 20 from earliest filing.
Also, at that time, the US was by far the world‘s largest market for almost everything. So, a US patent might be worth more than patents in the rest of the world combined. No longer.
The secrecy order effectively prevents you from filing abroad. So, there is a substantial likelihood that a foreign competitor might file while your application is under secrecy order. Thus, they obtain patents in the rest of the world.
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At multiple levels, that is a suis generis situation unlike anything we can expect in the modern economy.
Most trade secrets are things that can’t be as limited in distribution as aspects of the Coca-Cola formula are.
Temporally, things are different at both ends of the scale. On the one hand, it may be more important to stop a competitor early in the lifespan of a company. On the other hand, most trade secrets are of the type that do not retain relevance after more than a few years thereafter. They can be stolen, reverse engineered, or simply superseded.
A patent may keep you going for the medium term during which you may enjoy a combination of first mover advantage and network effects.
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Well, it worked just great for me. Patents were 100% a waste of money for our company. In one instance, we kept a technology as a trade secret, finally applying for a patent decades later. That patent was issued in 2020.* Had we obtained a patent in 1993, when it was invented, the patent would have long since expired and anyone could have stolen it. As it was, we had zero competitors. Indeed, our entire business plan was to operate in situations where there was no competition. I believe Peter Thiel wrote a book about that — in a modern economy.
*You know which one
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The kinds of techology that Palmer Luckey deals with is not the same as your typical product. There’s also such a thing as ITAR.
Ask Grok about the legal implications.
So that’s another niche situation where you could keep it secret. So we are not even remotely at a general rule.
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So are we agreed that this theory of not patenting does not apply to the “typical product” or typical service?
That’s why the USPTO has the secrecy review that can lead to a secrecy order. If they clear it, they publish it (unless you are only filing in the US and request it not be published).
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Need I remind you what the subject of this thread is? More specifically, the quote is from Palmer Luckey, who does not make “typical products.” Both Palmer and I are in the same line of business. The products are not typical.
Addendum: These products are generally not available to the population at large, who could reverse engineer them. Such hardware is often classified, strengthening their secrecy protection.
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Not as rare as you might imagine.
You know, it doesn’t really matter since, had we applied for a patent in 1993, it would have expired before 2020. Filing for the patent was a total waste of time and money but it wasn’t my decision. I’d rather have the $30k it cost than another useless patent with my name on it.
Afterthought: It would have been much more productive to spend that $30k on fast women and slow horses, though it might have been tricky to classify those as business expenses. Reminded me of this.
“A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas (originally Dallas).”
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