INVENTION SECRECY ACT OF 1951

The Invention Secrecy Act was passed in 1951 in order for the government to enforce secrecy on patent applications that were deemed to be a threat to our national or economic security.

The Wikipedia Page about this Act states the following:

"The U.S. government has long sought to control the release of new technologies that might threaten the national defense and economic stability of the country. The Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 is designed to prevent disclosure of new inventions and technologies that, in the opinion of selected federal agencies, present a possible threat to the national security of the United States.

During World War I, Congress authorized the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to classify certain defense-related patents…Patent secrecy orders were initially intended to remain effective for two years…but were later extended for the duration of the war.

The Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 made such patent secrecy permanent…The decision to classify new inventions under this act is made by "defense agencies" as defined by the President. Generally, these agencies include the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Security Agency (NSA), Department of Energy, and NASA, but even the Justice Department has played this role.

A secrecy order bars the award of a patent, orders that the invention be kept secret, restricts the filing of foreign patents, and specifies procedures to prevent disclosure of ideas contained in the application…”

FREE THE TECH ANALYSIS: Of special note here is that the Act is designed to enforce secrecy on innovations that are deemed to be a threat to our national security or ECONOMIC stability. This is extremely important as it shows that the suppression of technology is NOT due solely to military and defense reasons but can be due to an invention that would create a major financial disruption. This could apply to any number of space-age technologies such as anti-gravity propulsion systems, Free-Energy devices and could even apply to healing technologies, especially when we consider that two of the top global industries today are Energy and Healthcare.

In addition, the Act states that this Classification process is enacted based on the “opinion” of selected federal agencies, yet there is no criteria listed as to what forms or validates this opinion. As such, it appears there is tremendous leeway for agencies to deem something to be a potential security or stability threat.

Finally, the very last sentence provides more food for thought as it states that once a secrecy order is issued on a patent, procedures are specified to prevent disclosure of ideas contained in the application. What do these “procedures” consist of? Does this entail coercion and/or intimidation of the inventor, the forced signing of gag orders of inventors, offers of monetary gain in exchange for secrecy or even the scrubbing of information related to the idea off the internet? While anecdotal evidence suggests all of the above may be true, no one knows for certain, which is likely a result of these "procedures" themselves.

Under the 1951 Invention Secrecy Act described above, defense agencies provide the Patent and Trademark Office with a classified list of sensitive technologies in the form of the "Patent Security Category Review List" (PSCRL). A previous List from 1971 was obtained by researcher Michael Ravnitzky and provided some extremely interesting insights:

https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/invention/pscrl.pdf

The Category List contains all the categories one would expect to find, such as:
--Explosives & Inflammables
--Missiles, Munitions & Explosive Devices
--Weapons, Counter-weapons & Fire Control

But there are also Categories for a variety of other technologies:
--Propulsion Systems, Propellants & Fuels
--Power Supply
--Meteorology
--Miscellaneous
--Unique Materials & Devices

One of the most interesting finds in this Category List is located in Group XI (Power), Items 8 and 9, which notes that patents for solar photovoltaic generators were subject to review and possible restriction if the photovoltaics were more than 20% efficient.  Energy conversion systems were likewise subject to review and possible restriction if they offered conversion efficiencies in excess of 70-80%.

In relation to Items 8 & 9 above, Steven Aftergood, Director of the Federation of American Scientists, comments, “One may fairly ask if disclosure of such technologies could really have been ‘detrimental to the national security,’ or whether the opposite would be closer to the truth.  One may further ask what comparable advances in technology may be subject to restriction and non-disclosure today. But no answers are forthcoming, and the invention secrecy system persists with no discernible external review.”

Based upon the evidence above, we must agree with Mr. Aftergood. After all, if the type of technology that our modern household solar panels use was being suppressed some 50 years ago, we can only imagine and speculate what is being suppressed today.

In 2014 a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request was granted, revealing more key insights into how the mechanisms behind this program actually work. A good overview of the FOIA Docs is provided in this linked article below:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-u-s-government-has-a-secret-system-for-104249688314.html

"Newly released documents reveal that the office…has a covert system for delaying controversial or inconvenient patents…Before today, the program — named the Sensitive Application Warning System (SAWS) — has been mentioned only anecdotally by examiners who work in or with the office, and in a government memo that was leaked in March 2006. However, a new 50-page document obtained by a law firm’s Freedom of Information Act request shows the sweeping scope and conflicting interests of this particular set of rules...

SAWS-marked patents must be approved by anywhere from three to nine people and can be delayed for years. There is no official channel to notify an applicant once her patent is placed in the system, and the Patent Office has denied requests to divulge what applications are on the SAWS list…

Patent applications can be placed in the SAWS program for an extensive number of reasons, which Franklin and his associates call ‘astonishingly vague.’ This includes applications…dealing ‘with inventions, which, if issued, would potentially generate unwanted media coverage (i.e., news, blogs, forums).'"

A good example is an inventor named Dr Gerald Ross who applied for a patent in 1978 for a device that jammed electromagnetic transmissions at certain frequencies. His application was never officially denied nor approved until some 37 years later, when in 2014, his patent was mysteriously and finally granted. This shows how certain innovations fall into a black hole of secrecy that may never see the light of day, all without any public oversight.

While data for classified patents is not released regularly, it is available through the Freedom Of Information Act. The following data was obtained from the USPTO through FOIA Request No. F-18-00003 submitted by the previously mentioned Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org). By the end of fiscal year 1991, the number of patent secrecy orders stood at 6,193. This number shrank for each fiscal year thereafter, until 2002. Since 2002, the number of secrecy orders has grown, with 5,002 secrecy orders in effect at the end of fiscal year 2007. Today this number stands at 5,784 as of 2017.

The previously-mentioned Federation of American Scientists (FAS) produces a report detailing the official government statistics and published this 12-year chart showing Secrecy Orders (SO's) on patent applications from 2005 through 2016:

https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/invention/stats-17.pdf

Of interest in this report is not just the sheer number of classified patents but the various agencies that are requesting the classification. They include not just Navy and Air Force as one would expect, but there are Secrecy Orders issued by Foreign Origin, the Department of Energy, the NSA, NASA/DARPA as well as something called "John Doe SO's" of which we have no explanation for.

Another aspect of interest is the growing disparity between New Secrecy Orders issued versus Existing Secrecy Orders being rescinded, as it shows that government patent secrecy is increasing rapidly. For example in 2005-08, there was a ratio of 1.5 new secrecy orders for every old one rescinded. But in 2009-2016, those numbers change to almost a 4:1 ratio.

Much more information about Classified Patents and government secrecy in general can be found at the Federation of American Scientists main website linked here: https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/invention/index.html

Back in the 1990’s a TV show existed called Unsolved Mysteries, which would delve into a wide variety of subject matters ranging from bank robberies to ghost sightings to UFOs. I recall one episode in particular that investigated exotic propulsion systems and discussed a government contractor whose sole field of expertise was in the research and development of anti-gravity technology. I recall thinking that in just a few short years, a breakthrough could be made that would enable this technology to be not only successful but widespread.

Fast forward 20 years to the summer of 2015. I took a trip to the Mt Shasta area of California with my long-time girlfriend. One evening while stargazing the crystal clear skies with a group of 20 others, we all witnessed something extraordinary: we saw several craft flying at mindboggling speeds and making unusual turns, at times appearing and disappearing. One particular craft actually came to an instantaneous stop in mid-air, then it’s white light turned to a soft red glow which then continued to grow brighter and brighter red. We were all awed as the entire group witnessed this seemingly unbelievable event.

That experience led me to do more research in order to try to better understand what we had all seen. And over time I began to connect the dots and realize that while the crafts we saw certainly MAY have been of some type of extraterrestrial origin, they also may have been just a further iteration of the anti-gravity propulsion systems discussed on the TV show I’d seen in the 90’s. Certainly by now, I figured, with the increase in technological innovation, such technology could readily exist within the military industrial complex

The more I thought about it, and the more research I did, the pieces of the puzzle came together. I knew without a doubt that what we’d witnessed was real and I also knew that not just thousands but literally MILLIONS of credible people around the globe have witnessed similar aerial phenomena. I also knew that the boundaries of technology were being pushed every day with incredibly sophisticated new scientific breakthroughs being announced regularly. It was simply no longer farfetched for me to believe that what I saw that day was evidence of an exotic propulsion technology that governments may possess.

While it was comforting to know that my home country of the USA may indeed have such advanced technology, over time I just couldn’t stop thinking about how this technology, IF it did indeed existed, could potentially change the entire world in a heartbeat by being released into the public domain. This technology alone could instantly eliminate the need for fossil fuels like oil and could alleviate a lot of suffering and limitations in the world. With no reliance on oil, household energy would become truly affordable, cars and planes would no longer require fuel and the freedom to travel the globe would not only exist but become instantaneous. Even food that was about to be thrown away could be transported across the globe to people in dire need.

And therein lies the rub. The more I thought about the incredible positive changes this technology could have on the world, the more I realized the enormous impact it would have to our existing systems. In particular, the global economy is highly dependent upon the oil and gas industry as these fossil fuels are the basis of many large countries entire economies. In addition, such cornerstones such as the automotive, airline, defense and travel industries would also either become obsolete or drastically altered as a result. When you combine all of these massive impacts, it’s easy to see why world governments may not be keen on releasing such world changing technologies into the public domain.

So how would world governments prevent these massive financial and industrial disruptive impacts? By keeping these world-changing technologies classified. As it turns out, the US Government alone keeps over 5000 inventions classified. Their General Accounting Office (GAO) releases a report as part of the annual budget that lists how many Patents are currently Classified, how many were Declassified in the prior year and how many new ones have become Classified as well. This provides us verifiable, real-world insight into the land of the unknown.

As an inventor, you could discover an amazing world-changing technology and submit your invention to the US Patent Office (USPTO) for protection and recognition. However that day may never come as your invention may instead become classified under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 for reasons of “national security.” The National Security designation covers a very wide array of potential reasons – some that have to do with military purposes and others that have to do solely with economic or other disruptions it may cause. As a result your invention may never see the light of day nor will the world at large ever benefit from it.

But the larger reality is that in today’s day and age of rapid technological innovation, it’s only a short matter of time before these types of world-changing technologies are either discovered privately and/or open-sourced or find their way into the public domain by other means. So the question is NOT whether these types of technologies currently exist or will in the future as that much is obvious. Instead the real question becomes WHICH technologies do we as a society wish to be released today and which are we okay waiting to have released in the future.

And there’s only ONE true way to answer this question – by performing a comprehensive citizen-based review of ALL Classified Patents in order to first better understand which specific technologies are currently being sequestered under this Invention Secrecy Act. Only then, once we finally actually know the general types of technologies being withheld from the public, can we weigh the costs and benefits and decide as a people whether any or all of these innovations should be released for the benefit of humanity at large. Certainly, there will be risks to be considered but just as certainly, there will be rewards.

Our Project is NOT committed to blindly or irresponsibly promoting the disclosure of these inventions into the public domain. We are merely interested in pursuing the following goals:

1. INFORM the public that over 5000 Patents are currently Classified

2. FACILITATE a private Citizen Review Panel to better understand which innovations these cover

3. ENCOURAGE public discussion regarding potential declassification of them

YES! This data comes directly from the US Government itself, via the Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) via FOIA Request# F-18-00003. This FOIA Request is made by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org) and is updated annually. The latest response letter and report can be viewed below and shows updated figures of New, Rescinded and Total Secrecy Orders (SO’s) along with which departments requested them.

As a result, this claim of 5000+ classified patents is not speculation nor conspiracy theory but rather is 100% documented FACT. The specific technologies being suppressed by these secrecy orders, however, IS pure speculation, except for the information gleaned by the 1971 PSCRL leak, which for the first time revealed various Categories the USPTO uses to organize this program. This includes Categories such as Power Supply, Meteorology, Unique Materials and Devices, and Miscellaneous.

In the Power Supply Category, a sub-category reveals that specific highly efficient solar power devices and panels are subject to review and restriction. As a result it is now documented fact that:

• A. Over 5000 Patents are currently Classified (with Secrecy Orders requested by both various branches of the US Government as well as Foreign Governments)
• B. There are Technological Inventions being suppressed that involve the Weather, Alternative Power and Energy as well as other "Unique" materials and devices
• C. Efficient Solar Energy Panel Technology was being suppressed by this Program as far back as 1971

Here are the exact supporting documents provided by the USPTO FOIA Request:

FOIA Response

FOIA Request Report

PSCRL

The simple answer is that we have absolutely no idea – and that is the issue we aim to solve. What we DO know for certain is that over 5000 inventions are being specially protected so at this moment, we can only speculate what those innovations cover. Until a public oversight committee is formed to actually explore the issue and provide genuine transparency, there is no way to either prove or disprove whether certain kinds of highly advanced technology already exist.

As such the purpose of this project is NOT to excite the public by making wild and crazy claims but rather it’s to end the ability to make such claims by finally separating fact from conspiracy theory. It's quite possible that this Review will show that all 5000 classified patents cover mundane technical systems of little public interest. However it's also still possible that it will find just the opposite. Until we actually perform this review though, we will simply never know and as a result, the speculation will continue indefinitely.

We completely understand the importance and value of keeping national secrets, especially in regards to game-changing technology. That is why our Proposal calls for a PRIVATE review of these patents with citizens and experts who take a National Security Oath. It's also why we are only calling for general category count of all classified patents and a brief non-technical synopsis of 50 Patents (out of 5000+) that reveals very basic details with nothing that could identify the mechanisms involved that would allow other nations to steal or replicate the technology.

Overall our Proposal stems from a very simple and basic concept – that the citizens of a free country should have the ability to perform oversight to ensure that its government is using all the tools at its disposal to serve its citizen's best interests. Perhaps this project would not be necessary in the 1950's but today, we are faced with grim realities via constant document leaks that show various branches of government are either overly-influenced by corporate politics or simply saying one thing while doing another.

Over the nearly 70 years since the Invention Secrecy Act was formed, the evolution of technology has literally exploded and has become the single most critical backbone to our daily lives. What if a cure to a disease you or a loved one have already exists but is being suppressed via these Patents because it would put pharmaceutical giants out of business? What if a scientist already discovered the key to generating endless energy without the need for oil and gas but the government felt its release would cause a financial impact that would disrupt society?

The US Patent Office’s Patent Secrecy process (SAWS program) is so secret that we don’t even know the thresholds they use to decide what qualifies as a reason for classifying a patent as either a threat to national security or economic stability. All we know from the release of FOIA documents is that up to 9 representatives from various governmental agencies (including NASA, DARPA, DOE, etc) review these patents and all it takes is ONE to make it disappear from seeing the light of day forever.

As a result we are simply seeking greater insight into this process so we can finally end all of the “what ifs” and ensure that the Invention Secrecy Act is being used properly, as it was originally intended, for the good of our country as a whole.

While we are legally organized as a standard LLC, rather than a 501C non-profit entity, our intention and expectations are to operate at a financial loss, indefinitely. 100% of the proceeds from the Billboard Fundraisers will be used for the billboards themselves and the T-shirt Awareness Raising package is a zero-profit endeavor, before including our actual time and labor. When you factor in the expense of travel, convention fees and other such expenses, we anticipate losing thousands of dollars per year while pursuing this goal. Thankfully our Founders have other business interests which allow them to fund and operate this project at a net loss.

No, we would merely support and encourage that discussion to take place in a public arena and not a private one. If it ultimately turns out that our government possesses world-changing technology, it should be up to all of us to decide whether it's in our country's best interest to keep certain innovations classified and/or how they should be released and utilized.

It would certainly be a challenge for the citizens of this country to come to a consensus on these matters yet they are of vital importance as it may provide us our best opportunity yet to restore balance and truly make the world a better place. We would have to decide key new moral and ethics issues however we don't wish to get ahead of ourselves at this time as our current goal is to first simply find out if any such world-changing technology even exists.

While details are provided in the Petition Details and Nominations sections, we are basically looking for both qualified experts and "ordinary" citizens to spend approximately 3-6 months in Virginia to review the classified patent files.

All 50 members of this committee will take a National Security Oath and meet daily in a conference room at the US Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Alexandria, VA in which they will systematically review, count and categorize each individual Classified Patent. Each reviewer will also choose ONE patent that piqued their interest and publish a basic synopsis of this innovation for public release, without providing any key details that may allow others to replicate this technology.

The Experts in this committee will help to understand and explain the patents to the group so we need a variety of engineering, science, medical, legal and patent professionals to aid in this process. The General Citizens in this committee will be chosen to ensure we include representatives of the general public as well. Media personalities will be chosen to help ensure that the results of this process are communicated fairly and accurately to the public.

If you have the time to commit to this endeavor, and / or the necessary skill set, or know someone who would be a good candidate, please feel free to submit their Nomination here.

NO. While we certainly appreciate the offer as we'd love to gain more information and insight into suppressed inventions, we are NOT a document leaking organization such as WikiLeaks etc and therefore are not willing or able to acquire or disclose such information. Our project's goal is to work within the LEGAL framework and boundaries of the existing system. We aim to accomplish our objective by raising public awareness and petitioning the appropriate governmental entities to accept and execute our Proposal.