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01Path To Agi
02⚠️Geopolitics
03Conflict
04Climate
05📈Tech
06🔍Health
07🔴Ai In War
08₿Crypto
09💰Follow The Money
10📡Info Warfare
11👁Silent Companies
12🛰Space Dominance
13💧Water Security
14🤯Wtf
15🔔Whistleblowers
16🧪Synthetic Bio
17🌐Digital Nations
18🚀Sci-Fi → Real
19🔴System Failures
20🕵️Conspiracies ✓
21📊MOST INTERES…
22📜MIND BENDING…
23🏛GLOBAL LOBBY…
24📈INTERESTING …
25⚖Dirty Politics
26📉DALIO PRINCI…
📜

FILED

MIND BENDING PATENTS

Central Hypothesis

“A patent is a state-verified admission of what an institution believes is possible, which makes the patent archive the most complete public record of intent.”
Evidence strength · grounded
62 sourced findings·6 corroborated
58%
22.1Patents That Contradict Their Own Owner's Policy1 live
853

Navy and HHS grants put institutional claims on the public record, while private or unassigned patents show how a grant is often mistaken for proof of government deployment or tested efficacy.

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22.2Invention Secrecy Orders: Patents the State Withholds1 live
751

At FY2025 year-end, 6,543 secrecy orders were in force, about 17% above FY2015; the same regime can bar privately funded inventors from publishing or patenting, and new orders have outpaced rescissions.

bar = value against the largest on this card
MetricValueWhat It Means
Statutory basis and review procedure
35 U.S.C. §181; MPEP §120
▾
MetricStatutory basis and review procedure
Value35 U.S.C. §181; MPEP §120
What It MeansCAUSAL: (1) The USPTO reviews applications and imposes secrecy orders where publication would be detrimental to national security; classified applications must obtain an order under 37 CFR §5.2(a). (2) The reviewing determination is made by the interested defense agency, not the patent examiner. (3) The procedure is published in the USPTO's own examination manual, which makes the mechanism; unlike the case files; fully citable.
70
uspto.gov
Secrecy orders in effect at fiscal year end
6,543 (FY2025); up from 5,579…
▾
MetricSecrecy orders in effect at fiscal year end
Value6,543 (FY2025); up from 5,579 (FY2015) and 5,445 (FY2013) (FAS via USPTO FOIA data)
What It MeansCAUSAL: (1) FAS's current tracker reports 6,543 secrecy orders in effect at the end of fiscal year 2025, based on USPTO statistics obtained under FOIA; this replaces this card's prior FY2015 figure of 5,579 and shows the standing total climbing roughly 17% over the intervening decade.
67x1
sgp.fas.org
Formerly-secret inventions that later received patents, decades after filing
3 inventions patented after…
▾
MetricFormerly-secret inventions that later received patents, decades after filing
Value3 inventions patented after their secrecy orders were rescinded, out of 95 new orders /
What It MeansCAUSAL: (1) FAS reported that in one recent year, 95 new secrecy orders were imposed on patent applications while 36 prior orders were rescinded; three of the newly releasable inventions went on to actually receive patents, in some cases decades after the original filing date.
57
fas.org
A single inventor's 13-year secrecy-order case: Hornback v. United States🔴 SPOF
US Patent 6,079,666; secrecy…
▾
MetricA single inventor's 13-year secrecy-order case: Hornback v. United States
ValueUS Patent 6,079,666; secrecy order imposed 1987, rescinded 1999, patent finally granted
What It MeansCAUSAL: (1) The Air Force classified inventor Alton Hornback's patent application as secret on September 17, 1987; the order was renewed annually and not rescinded until April 21, 1999, with the patent finally issuing as US 6,079,666 on June 27, 2000; a 13-year gap between filing-ready invention and grant.
50
image-ppubs.uspto.gov
"John Doe" orders on private inventors
39 new orders (FY2017)
▾
Metric"John Doe" orders on private inventors
Value39 new orders (FY2017)
What It MeansCAUSAL: (1) A "John Doe" secrecy order is imposed on an application in which the government holds no property interest. (2) It reaches private inventors and companies who took no federal funding and signed no government contract. (3) This is the sharpest edge of the statute: an inventor can be barred from publishing or patenting their own privately funded work, which is why this count is tracked separately from agency-interest orders.
38
fas.org
New orders imposed vs. rescinded
132 imposed, 28 rescinded…
▾
MetricNew orders imposed vs. rescinded
Value132 imposed, 28 rescinded (FY2017)
What It MeansCAUSAL: (1) Each year a small number of new orders are added and a smaller number lifted. (2) The imposed-to-rescinded ratio is consistently lopsided. (3) That asymmetry, not the annual count, is what drives the standing total upward decade over decade.
38
fas.org
Which agencies actually recommend a secrecy order, and on whose inventions
Recommended by Army, Navy…
▾
MetricWhich agencies actually recommend a secrecy order, and on whose inventions
ValueRecommended by Army, Navy, Air Force, NSA, DOE, and NASA; majority of orders apply to
What It MeansCAUSAL: (1) FAS's administrative summary states secrecy orders are imposed by the USPTO upon specific recommendation from defense and security agencies; Army, Navy, Air Force, NSA, DOE, and NASA; rather than the USPTO making the national-security judgment itself.
38
sgp.fas.org
22.3Patents on Mind, Mood & Behavior2 live
450

Granted claims over attention, perception, emotional state and neural signal; including brain-computer interfaces and neuromodulation.

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22.4Atmospheric & Weather Modification Patents2 live
461

Filings claiming deliberate modification of weather, cloud cover, or the upper atmosphere; separating what was patented from what was ever deployed.

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22.5Who Owns the Human Genome
851

The two-decade arc in which human gene sequences were patentable, and the ruling that ended it.

1
2013-06-13AMP v. Myriad Genetics decided…
causes
2
2013-06-13NIH Director issues official statement…
causes
3
2023-12-08FDA approves Casgevy, the first…
causes
4
1980-06-16Diamond v. Chakrabarty; Supreme Court…
causes
5
1996-02-01Human Genome Project adopts the Bermuda…
causes
6
1997-01-01NIH's own research arm was a co-grantee…
causes
7
2005-10-01Study finds roughly 20% of human genes…
causes
8
2014-03-04USPTO issues examiner guidance…
22.6Publicly Funded, Privately Priced3 live
458

Inventions developed with federal money, patented, then exclusively licensed, and the march-in rights the government has never exercised.

InventionPublic FundingExclusive HolderAccess Outcome
GAO review of draft guidance to assert government march-in rights based on price
Federal funding agencies generally, under the Bayh-Dole Act
GAO reports agencies have never once exercised march-in rights, across all petitions since the Act's 1980 passage
CAUSAL: (1) GAO's review specifically traces to a 2023 NIST draft guidance proposing that agencies could consider a product's price when deciding whether to exercise march-in rights; the first time price was explicitly proposed as a march-in trigger rather than availability alone.
v2
mRNA-1273 (Moderna COVID-19 vaccine); spike-protein stabilization technology
NIH/NIAID co-developed the vaccine and provided scientists and facilities; NIH gave Moderna roughly $1.4 billion for development
Moderna filed patent applications naming only its own scientists, excluding the three NIH co-inventors NIH itself asserted contributed the vaccine's key stabilized-spike-protein element
CAUSAL: (1) NIH and NIAID scientists co-developed mRNA-1273 with Moderna; NIH's own December 2020 statement on the FDA Emergency Use Authorization describes the vaccine as 'co-developed with scientists at the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Moderna.' (2) Despite that, Moderna's 2021 patent applications on the vaccine's key sequence did not list the three NIH
Xtandi (enzalutamide); prostate cancer therapy
Invented at UCLA under U.S. Army and National Institutes of Health grant funding
Astellas Pharma / Pfizer (exclusive licensees)
CAUSAL: (1) A federally funded university invention was patented and exclusively licensed to commercial firms. (2) Petitioners asked NIH to exercise Bayh-Dole march-in authority under 35 U.S.C. §203, arguing the US price was not "reasonable terms" as required for practical application. (3) NIH declined to initiate a march-in proceeding in March 2023 and HHS denied the subsequent appeal on 2024-02-05; establishing that march-in has not been used as a price-control lever even where federal funding is undisputed.
v2
Norvir (ritonavir); HIV protease inhibitor
Developed with federal research funding; subject of a 2004 march-in petition
Abbott Laboratories
CAUSAL: (1) Essential Inventions petitioned NIH to march in on the ritonavir patents after a large US price increase. (2) NIH declined, concluding a march-in proceeding was not warranted on the available information and statutory framework; the reasoning turned on the drug being available, with price alone falling outside the march-in criteria. (3) This is the precedent the later Xtandi denial rests on, which is why both rows belong on this card: the constraint is the statutory reading of "reasonable terms, " not the absence of federal funding.
v2
22.7Federal Agency Patent Portfolios1 live
658

Which US agencies and national labs hold patents, how large the portfolios are, and what they license out.

bar = value against the largest on this card
Agency / LabActive PatentsPortfolio Focus
USPTO: agentic AI-assisted patent-eligibility evaluator
Announced 2026 (USPTO)
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Agency / LabUSPTO: agentic AI-assisted patent-eligibility evaluator
Active PatentsAnnounced 2026 (USPTO)
Portfolio FocusCAUSAL: (1) USPTO announced an agentic AI-assisted evaluator to help examiners make Section 101 patent-eligibility determinations, building on its earlier Artificial Intelligence Search Automated Pilot Program (ASAP). (2) This puts an AI system directly into the gatekeeping decision of what can be patented at all, not just prior-art search; a step beyond AI-assisted search toward AI-assisted
71
uspto.gov
U.S. Department of Energy; Lab Partnering Service (DOE + DHS-funded R&D)
25,000+ published patent…
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Agency / LabU.S. Department of Energy; Lab Partnering Service (DOE + DHS-funded R&D)
Active Patents25,000+ published patent applications and issued patents over 17 years (DOE)
Portfolio FocusCAUSAL: (1) DOE's own Lab Partnering Service states its searchable portfolio contains more than 25,000 published U.S. patent applications and issued patents resulting from R&D funded by DOE and the Department of Homeland Security over the preceding 17 years.
69
energy.gov
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Federal Technology Transfer Act (FTTA) licensing program
Multiple active patents…
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Agency / LabU.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Federal Technology Transfer Act (FTTA) licensing program
Active PatentsMultiple active patents across water, air-quality, contaminated-sites and
Portfolio FocusCAUSAL: (1) EPA maintains its own patent-licensing program under the Federal Technology Transfer Act, publishing categorized lists of its patented technologies available for licensing; including specific patent numbers such as 10,290,089 (total coliform/E. coli detection) and 10,890,343 (personal-device air-pollution-exposure assessment).
60
epa.gov
NASA: Technology Transfer Program
More than 1,400 innovations…
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Agency / LabNASA: Technology Transfer Program
Active PatentsMore than 1,400 innovations available for licensing (as of NASA ATLAS announcement, 2023)
Portfolio FocusCAUSAL: (1) NASA maintains a public, searchable patent portfolio and licenses it to industry through the Automated Technology Licensing Application System (ATLAS). (2) The agency is therefore both a large patent holder and an active licensor, which is the mechanism by which federally owned inventions reach commercial products. (3) NASA pages state different figures (1,200 / 1,300 / 1,400+) depending on page and date, so this count is as-of and provisional; agents should re-source it with a current as-of date rather than treat it as stable.
50
nasa.gov
11 federal laboratories, interagency aggregate (NIST Technology Partnerships Office annual report)
1,143 patents received, 1,830…
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Agency / Lab11 federal laboratories, interagency aggregate (NIST Technology Partnerships Office annual report)
Active Patents1,143 patents received, 1,830 applications submitted, 4,700+ inventions disclosed
Portfolio FocusCAUSAL: (1) NIST's annual federal technology-transfer report aggregates activity across 11 federal laboratories under the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act, requiring each agency operating a federal lab to report intramural tech-transfer statistics to OMB and NIST every year.
50
nist.gov
NIH Intramural Research Program (also licenses inventions on behalf of CDC)
Nearly 1,400 inventions…
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Agency / LabNIH Intramural Research Program (also licenses inventions on behalf of CDC)
Active PatentsNearly 1,400 inventions currently available for licensing (NIH)
Portfolio FocusCAUSAL: (1) NIH's own Intramural Research Program page states almost 1,400 inventions from the intramural program are currently available for licensing to companies for commercial development, comparable in scale to NASA's ~1,400-technology portfolio already tracked on this card.
50
irp.nih.gov
22.8Surveillance & Biometric Patents1 live
1570

Recent grants put episodic and temporal memory for large language models alongside automatic control skips for quantum circuits, showing the archive's frontier moving through concrete methods for both AI reasoning and quantum computation.

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22.9Filed Decades Before Their Industry1 live
352

These records place foundational technologies years to decades ahead of broad civilian or commercial use: rechargeable lithium cells trace to 1973, public-key cryptography to 1977, and GPS to a 1964 military precursor.

1
US 4,009,052; "Chalcogenide battery"…
causes
2
US 4,218,582; "Public key cryptographic…
causes
3
GPS (NAVSTAR Global Positioning…
22.10Acquired to Be Buried: Defensive & Suppression Patenting1 live
360

The current record shows patent power operating through institutions as well as ownership: SEP remedy policy shapes licensing leverage, examiner conflicts expose integrity risks, and regulators have examined patent assertion entities as a competition problem.

writes rulesapprovesfundsprofits → reinvestsblockedStandards1StandardsStandardsRegulators2RegulatorsRegulatorsLobbyists3LobbyistsLobbyistsMonopoly4MonopolyMonopolyCompetitors5CompetitorsCompetitorsCAPTUREFLYWHEEL↻
U.S. Department of Justice…
Two former USPTO patent…
DOJ Antitrust Division and…
▸Verified Sources (184)

This topic's hunt pipeline cites only these 184 domains — no general web sources.

Government / Regulator

  • U.S. Patent and Trademark Office — uspto.gov
  • Japan Patent Office — jpo.go.jp
  • China National Intellectual Property Administration — cnipa.gov.cn
  • Korean Intellectual Property Office — kipo.go.kr
  • Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (India) — ipindia.gov.in
  • IP Australia — ipaustralia.gov.au
  • Canadian Intellectual Property Office — ised-isde.canada.ca
  • U.S. Central Intelligence Agency — cia.gov
  • U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation — fbi.gov
  • U.S. National Security Agency — nsa.gov
  • U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency — dia.mil
  • Office of the Director of National Intelligence — dni.gov
  • U.S. National Reconnaissance Office — nro.gov
  • U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency — nga.mil
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — darpa.mil
  • Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity — iarpa.gov
  • All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office — aaro.mil
  • Defense Technical Information Center — dtic.mil
  • U.S. Department of Defense — defense.gov
  • U.S. Army — army.mil
  • U.S. Navy — navy.mil
  • U.S. Air Force — af.mil
  • U.S. Space Force — spaceforce.mil
  • The White House / OSTP — whitehouse.gov
  • U.S. Department of Justice — justice.gov
  • U.S. Department of Homeland Security — dhs.gov
  • U.S. State Department — state.gov
  • U.S. Treasury — treasury.gov
  • U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (export controls) — bis.gov
  • U.S. Federal Communications Commission — fcc.gov
  • U.S. Federal Aviation Administration — faa.gov
  • NOAA — noaa.gov
  • U.S. National Archives and Records Administration — archives.gov
  • U.S. Government Publishing Office — govinfo.gov
  • U.S. Federal Register — federalregister.gov
  • U.S. Federal Rulemaking Portal — regulations.gov
  • U.S. Freedom of Information Act Portal — foia.gov
  • U.S. Federal Courts — uscourts.gov
  • Supreme Court of the United States — supremecourt.gov
  • NASA — nasa.gov
  • NIST — nist.gov
  • U.S. National Institutes of Health — nih.gov
  • National Science Foundation — nsf.gov
  • U.S. Department of Energy — energy.gov
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — hhs.gov
  • U.S. Food and Drug Administration — fda.gov
  • U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — cdc.gov
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — epa.gov

International Organisation

  • European Patent Office — epo.org

Research / Journal

  • arXiv — arxiv.org
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — pnas.org

Primary Lab / Company

  • Los Alamos National Laboratory — lanl.gov
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — llnl.gov
  • Sandia National Laboratories — sandia.gov
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory — ornl.gov
  • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — pnnl.gov
  • Idaho National Laboratory — inl.gov

Statistical / Data Agency

  • PatentsView (USPTO Office of the Chief Economist) — patentsview.org
  • DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information — osti.gov

Non-Profit / Archive

  • Federation of American Scientists (invention secrecy FOIA series) — fas.org
  • National Security Archive — nsarchive.gwu.edu

Applies to all topics (123)

  • United Nations — un.org
  • World Bank — worldbank.org
  • IMF — imf.org
  • OECD — oecd.org
  • European Commission — ec.europa.eu
  • U.S. Congress — congress.gov
  • U.S. GAO — gao.gov
  • Nature — nature.com
  • Science (AAAS) — science.org
  • U.S. National Academies — nationalacademies.org
  • World Health Organization — who.int
  • UNESCO — unesco.org
  • UN Environment Programme — unep.org
  • UN Development Programme — undp.org
  • International Telecommunication Union — itu.int
  • World Intellectual Property Organization — wipo.int
  • World Meteorological Organization — wmo.int
  • International Atomic Energy Agency — iaea.org
  • International Civil Aviation Organization — icao.int
  • International Maritime Organization — imo.org
  • UN Food and Agriculture Organization — fao.org
  • International Labour Organization — ilo.org
  • UNCTAD — unctad.org
  • UN Human Rights Office — ohchr.org
  • UN Refugee Agency — unhcr.org
  • International Organization for Migration — iom.int
  • UN Office on Drugs and Crime — unodc.org
  • UNICEF — unicef.org
  • World Food Programme — wfp.org
  • World Trade Organization — wto.org
  • Bank for International Settlements — bis.org
  • Financial Action Task Force — fatf-gafi.org
  • IPCC — ipcc.ch
  • International Renewable Energy Agency — irena.org
  • International Energy Agency — iea.org
  • African Union — au.int
  • ASEAN — asean.org
  • Organization of American States — oas.org
  • CARICOM — caricom.org
  • Pacific Islands Forum — forumsec.org
  • African Development Bank — afdb.org
  • Asian Development Bank — adb.org
  • Inter-American Development Bank — iadb.org
  • Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank — aiib.org
  • EBRD — ebrd.com
  • Council of Europe — coe.int
  • OSCE — osce.org
  • South Africa Government — gov.za
  • Statistics South Africa — statssa.gov.za
  • South African Reserve Bank — resbank.co.za
  • Central Bank of Nigeria — cbn.gov.ng
  • Kenya National Bureau of Statistics — knbs.or.ke
  • Central Bank of Kenya — centralbank.go.ke
  • Bank of Ghana — bog.gov.gh
  • Central Bank of Egypt — cbe.org.eg
  • Bank Al-Maghrib (Morocco) — bkam.ma
  • Rwanda National Institute of Statistics — statistics.gov.rw
  • Government of China — gov.cn
  • China National Bureau of Statistics — stats.gov.cn
  • People's Bank of China — pbc.gov.cn
  • Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs — mofa.go.jp
  • Statistics Bureau of Japan — stat.go.jp
  • Bank of Japan — boj.or.jp
  • Government of South Korea — korea.kr
  • Bank of Korea — bok.or.kr
  • Statistics Korea — kostat.go.kr
  • Government of India — india.gov.in
  • Reserve Bank of India — rbi.org.in
  • India Ministry of Statistics — mospi.gov.in
  • Press Information Bureau of India — pib.gov.in
  • Government of Singapore — gov.sg
  • Monetary Authority of Singapore — mas.gov.sg
  • Singapore Department of Statistics — singstat.gov.sg
  • Bank Negara Malaysia — bnm.gov.my
  • Malaysia Department of Statistics — dosm.gov.my
  • Bank Indonesia — bi.go.id
  • Statistics Indonesia — bps.go.id
  • Bank of Thailand — bot.or.th
  • State Bank of Vietnam — sbv.gov.vn
  • State Bank of Pakistan — sbp.org.pk
  • Pakistan Bureau of Statistics — pbs.gov.pk
  • Bangladesh Bank — bb.org.bd
  • Central Bank of Sri Lanka — cbsl.gov.lk
  • Nepal Rastra Bank — nrb.org.np
  • Saudi Central Bank — sama.gov.sa
  • Saudi General Authority for Statistics — stats.gov.sa
  • United Arab Emirates Government — u.ae
  • Central Bank of the UAE — centralbank.ae
  • Qatar Central Bank — qcb.gov.qa
  • Bank of Israel — boi.org.il
  • Israel Central Bureau of Statistics — cbs.gov.il
  • Central Bank of Turkey — tcmb.gov.tr
  • Turkish Statistical Institute — tuik.gov.tr
  • Government of Brazil — gov.br
  • IBGE (Brazil statistics) — ibge.gov.br
  • Central Bank of Brazil — bcb.gov.br
  • Government of Mexico — gob.mx
  • INEGI (Mexico statistics) — inegi.org.mx
  • Bank of Mexico — banxico.org.mx
  • Government of Argentina — argentina.gob.ar
  • INDEC (Argentina statistics) — indec.gob.ar
  • Central Bank of Argentina — bcra.gob.ar
  • Central Bank of Chile — bcentral.cl
  • Chile National Statistics Institute — ine.cl
  • DANE (Colombia statistics) — dane.gov.co
  • Bank of the Republic (Colombia) — banrep.gov.co
  • Central Reserve Bank of Peru — bcrp.gob.pe
  • INEI (Peru statistics) — inei.gob.pe
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics — abs.gov.au
  • Reserve Bank of Australia — rba.gov.au
  • Government of New Zealand — govt.nz
  • Stats NZ — stats.govt.nz
  • Reserve Bank of New Zealand — rbnz.govt.nz
  • Government of the United Kingdom — gov.uk
  • UK Office for National Statistics — ons.gov.uk
  • Bank of England — bankofengland.co.uk
  • Swiss Federal Administration — admin.ch
  • Swiss National Bank — snb.ch
  • Statistics Norway — ssb.no
  • Statistics Sweden — scb.se
  • Government of Canada — canada.ca
  • Statistics Canada — statcan.gc.ca
  • Bank of Canada — bankofcanada.ca