Because Evil Geniuses need to protect their IP too

[major_clanger]

The UK Intellectual Property Office (the Patent Office as was) has a list of technologies for which patent applications may be made classified (page links to 79kb PDF).

I wonder how this list was created? Some of the technologies listed are very specific (e.g. 'Hard alloys having a density greater than 13 grams per cc', 'Features enabling turbine entry gas temperatures above 1500K or re-heat boost temperatures above 1800K to be sustained in a gas turbine'); I suspect the former falls under 'there are worrying uses for such materials' whilst the latter may be 'if anyone works out how to do this HMG wants to keep it to itself'.

The redactions are also interesting, although if the original document was only RESTRICTED then they can't have been that exotic. Of course, the UKIPO may have a further document at a much higher classification that lists the really alarming things you might see in a patent application.*

*If it is protectively marked as TOP SECRET MAGINOT BLUE STARS and gives the number of Capital Laundry Services, I really don't want to know.

Comments

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Given the international nature of most patent applications I would be interested in knowing how this works if a foreign country applied for a UK/EU patent in one of the restricted technologies along with patents for the process in their own country - and published the tech in their own country.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

A file with which I suspect Colin Jack is all too familiar!

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Torchwood is probably too busy fighting off patent infringement suits from alien lawyers.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

A pervading meme in such circles is that the UK never patented teh Internets, after we'd invented them in the 1960s, because the packet switching innovations counted as high-speed telecomms that crossed some arbitrary speed boundary somewhere in just such a document. As a result, we just forgot all about it instead.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

And let's not forget public key encryption as well...

[blufive.livejournal.com]

I think they went around the defence contractors list, and said: "what single advance would improve [military device X]"

The "hard alloy" sounds like an ideal material for ballistic penetrators, as in APDS rounds. Current choice (according to wikipedia) is Tungsten Carbide at ~15 g/cc. If TC has any notable disadvantages, then anything over 13 g/cc is probably going to be interesting enough to investigate further.

(IIRC, it was twenty years ago) The turbine entry temperature is usually the limiting factor in gas turbines; the hotter you can get it, the more powerful any given engine design is going to be. 1500K is pretty much the limit for the nickel-based alloys widely used in current designs. And I'd guess 1800K is the limit where you can't make afterburners more powerful without melting the nozzle.

So, I think both are "HMG wants to keep it to ourselves (and maybe allies)" territory