Talk:Invention Secrecy Act

Invention Secrecy Act is currently a Law good article nominee. Nominated by — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) at 21:44, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

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Short description: US law restricting disclosure of certain patents for national security reasons

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Sources to work through

I have not gone through most of these and will in coming weeks, and there seems to be around three or four times more.

https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/invention/index.html

https://fas.org/publication/invention-secrecy-2016/

https://www.dodcui.mil/Patent/Secrecy-Orders/

https://wwws.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/clbe/events/innovation/documents/pellegrino_disclosure_effect_of_patents.pdf

https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1208&context=wmelpr

https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1049&context=ipt

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718723001133

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25545/revisions/w25545.rev0.pdf

https://www.khuranaandkhurana.com/2021/10/08/an-overview-on-the-invention-secrecy-act-of-1951/

https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1189&context=journal-of-property-law

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6108&context=mlr

https://michiganlawreview.org/journal/patents-procedure-applicability-of-invention-secrecy-act-where-government-use-of-invention-is-authorized/

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/hidden-costs-securing-innovation-manifold-impacts-compulsory-invention-secrecy

https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/facsch_lawrev/article/2123/&path_info=Secret_Inventions.pdf

https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=akronintellectualproperty

https://www.archives.gov/cui/registry/category-detail/secrecy-orders

There should be plenty of material to expand this. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 00:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've started to work through these beginning somewhat with the lede, and then to expand each point there within the body. I also just posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law to see about similar scenarios from laws that had limited duration effects on people, to see how examples of those things are arranged and structured. The sources above have numerous actual examples of people and their inventions. I've also found a number of additional sources, but it'll take me weeks or longer to work through just this. Unsurprisingly, I'm easily finding data going back to the 1950s. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 00:23, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to work on this article. I have a couple of comments:

Footnotes go outside of the punctuation, not inside of it.
The lead should neutrally summarize the article. Right now, it appears to present an argument that the Act stifles innovation.

voorts (talk/contributions) 02:05, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How's the current setup looking since I changed it? -- Very Polite Person (talk) 21:04, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It looks much better. I have a few more notes:

"in the opinion of selected federal agencies, present an alleged threat to the economic stability or national security of the United States" - is this what the statute said? do they only need to allege a threat, or actually find one?
Remove the word "simply" from the lead.
The lead should summarize the entire article, including the history.
Looking through the references list, I don't see any law reviews cited. If you have access to legal databases, I recommend looking there, or you should try looking on Google scholar.

Nice work. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"do they only need to allege a threat, or actually find one?"

They don't seem to have to even prove it, from what I can tell. It's wholly subjective and left to the discretion of staff at the agencies. I haven't seen a passage that goes any further than that yet and have started adding some law review material that I have access to. I'll have to dig more probably but that seems accurate on available information so far, but I have literally hundreds of pages of reading to go. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 18:04, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another belated thanks for being the only person to weigh in here (for what I know is not exactly a high-visibility page).

What it looked like then: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Invention_Secrecy_Act&oldid=1201903852

And now: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Invention_Secrecy_Act&oldid=1309229544 — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 21:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"The only way an inventor can avoid the risk of such imposed secrecy is to forgo patent protection."

I've removed this here until we can source it. Putting it here for posterity as it's interesting enough to look into more later. I removed the other remaining uncited statistics factoids. Probably overkill to have that much. It would be better in a chart if we could even source that. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 18:01, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:LIST approach, or not, for this section?

I'm agnostic; apparently both are allowed/fine in this scenario.

What do you all think? 1 or 2? I think I'm leaning a more refined prose format. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 22:30, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Going to do a source review and break out of all content ahead of GA

Given the complexity of the topic and that I want to take it to GA/FA, I started assembling this:

User:Very Polite Person/library/Invention Secrecy Act/source review

To make sure I accurately squeeze every drop of every source and to make reviewer life easier given the complexity of the topic (will do similarly later for mosaic theory and then field propulsion.

If any reader wants to help, please feel free! — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 16:24, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Two sentences to source

During World War I, Congress authorized the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to classify certain defense-related patents.

^ predates my work.

That wartime program lapsed after the Armistice but was re-imposed in October 1941 as the United States prepared to enter World War II.

^ added here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Invention_Secrecy_Act&diff=1290279952&oldid=1290279288

I think I mixed up a source there--it's not that armistice, I'm pretty sure. I need to go back into the sources for that. Pulled for now. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 15:58, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]