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Comment by jemfinch | Hacker News Reader

"Alexander said that if he determines that he needs to use technology or methods that the NSA has patented, he will pay for a license".

Why can the NSA patent anything at all, preventing the public from using the technology it generated with taxpayers' money?

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Why not? It is just like many other companies that invent technologies that might happen to also be funded by the public. See DARPA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA

Can I call up the NSA and obtain a license for say... XKeyScore? Probably not... so this is egregious.

Not everything developed by the government is automatically supposed to be available to the public so I guess I don't understand your point.

The point is how is it acceptable that a previously-public-servant can have insider knowledge about "secret" government patents and he can obtain a license to use the technology but I cannot? That's absurd and an abuse of power and privilege.

Did it say he was going to use secret patents?

Or just that he was going to use NSA patents?

Because the NSA maintains a list of patented technologies that they offer to the public on various terms: http://www.nsa.gov/research/_files/tech_transfers/nsa_techno...

Even if he uses knowledge, methods, practices, routines, guidelines, etc from his time serving at the NSA -- I would expect a NDA to prevent him from using any of that knowledge -- my company made me sign one, and so do most.

It allows the government to prove that they invented it before someone else. It protects them from patent trolls.

"Why can the NSA patent anything at all"

I wouldn't bother with anything they patented.

If they did that it means it's not worthy of secrecy. It's that simple.

Patents are public

Not all patents are public, for at least some the government can file a private patent on secret tech and only have to reveal it when someone else tries to patent the same thing.

Yes, but the fact that Alexander has insider-info where he knows about certain "secret" patents and then will "buddy-buddy" pay the government for "licenses" for said secret patents is absurd.

How would this work if it were say, Krebs doing the consulting? He would not have access to secret government patents... nor should he (if the patents are supposed to be secret for "national security" purposes). Neither should Alexander.

Why can't anyone license the public sector work of the NSA?

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