In reading this article I wondered how that is usually set up. I assume the military owns all rights, but then I remembered that defense contractors often sell versions of what they make for the US military overseas, so they must have some design rights.
How does that arrangement work? Could the US military choose another firm to build a Lockheed airplane design after the initial contract with Lockheed is finished?
Generally, these are given as separate military contracts.
One is for the design of the weapons system (sometimes more than one are given – then different companies are competing to produce the best design). The end product of this contract is the design for the weapon (and maybe a working prototype or two). The government then owns this design, and any patents, etc.
Then a second contract is offered for bids, for the actual production of x thousand of that new weapon. Multiple companies will bid on this, including not only the company that did the design, but others too, maybe even some who were working on competing designs. And it’s not uncommon for a different company than the one that did the design to win the bid for the production contract. When I was with Honeywell, this was a big complaint inside the company, that they won design contracts, but lost the production contract to a competitor. (And the production contract is the more profitable one, since it involves producing thousands of the weapon, often over many years.)
And regarding selling these weapons to other countries – our government retains the rights to the weapon system, and I believe they have to give permission to sell it to foreign countries. Which will depend on diplomatic relations – permission might be given to sell it to other NATO countries, but might be turned down for Iran, Libya, etc.
If by ‘weapons’, you mean jet aircraft, then a single patent would never cover that kind of 'weapon". Patents would cover the components, or features of the components that make up the aircraft, if such components were novel, or had novel features. The overall design (i.e., shape) might be patented, depending on a number of factors, such as whether it’s novel and what improvements were made over existing technology. The manufacturer (or its employees) would retain the patent rights in almost all cases. I can’t think of a situation where the militay would require that the patent rights would be transferred to themselves, unless the invention that is the subject of the patent was a joint project between the military and the contractors.
As to design rights - i.e., copying the basic ‘look’ of the aircraft, again, the manufacturer/designer would retain those rights, so long as they applied for protection of them. Even once the right expired, (after 15/25 years depending on jurisdiction) the manufacturer/designer would have legal rights to prevent people from copying their design and ‘passing it off’ as a genuine original, especially in cases where the genuine product is famous.
After reading t-bonhams post, yes I seem to recall that the US has some kind of law that allows the US government to control the sale of all weapons systems. I don’t know the details of that but it’s not a part of patent law per se. It would probably be a completely seperate Act of Congress.
Sorry for the multiple posts, but after having a dig around, it seems that the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 prevents the sale of weapons to foreign governments. So while the inventors retain (I would expect) the IP rights to what they create, they are still prevented from selling it to just anyone - they have to first obtain government approval for the sale. So the IP rights issue is different from the sale issue, as I wrote above.
Although there was one interesting find:
When ITT Corporation was fined in 2007 for sale of night vision technology to foreign governments, their penalty was an option. either (a) pay 100 million dollars, or (b) spend half that much on new night vision research, and any IP rights from such research is to be held by the government (so here, at least is one case where the government would retain the IP rights. But this is a rare case, I would think.
They don’t. It is equivalent to “work for hire” on a personal level, where a scientist working for a computer company invents something patentable – the patent belongs to the company, not that individual.
Oh come on. I was using “inventor” as shorthand. In any case, there are many instances where the inventor retains legal ownership, yes even in large corporations. So, yes they do.
There are a number of ways “rights” to the system are controlled. Early in my career, most ammunition designs and associated weapon systems were bought and owned as a package by the government. When the original contract expired, the Technical Data Package (TDP) would be made available to all the bidders for evaluation. The TDP is all the drawings, specification, and assembly methods for the product. This changed over time to where the rights to the TDP were negotiated and might not become government property . The government may also have limited rights; the contractor can spell out proprietary information not to be released outside terms of the contract; or furnish a component as a “black box” without any documentation. All in the contract of course and a significant factor in pricing.
In many missiles systems, the contract would have a “breakout” date. The prime contractor would have to release manufacturing rights on a specific percentage of components (could be price or parts). These rights would then be bid on by small/disadvantage/minority owned businesses to fulfill various Federal laws on procurement.
Note that government manufacturing entities can bid on the released contracts as well. In some cases, the government has the only machinery or processing plants available. Individual plants/depots can and do bid against each other on cost basis. Many government facilities are contractor operated but direct ownership still exists. Arsenals and ammunition plants are examples.