Exceptions to the principle of patent disclosure

A basic principle of the patent system is that all authorized inventions should be made public after authorization, even after application and before authorization. This is what the public needs. However, if the invention-creation for which a patent is applied involves new weapons or their components, it will be announced in accordance with the general procedures, which will harm the national interests. Therefore, the patent laws of all countries have made exceptions to the above principles, that is, they can be kept confidential. International treaties also allow countries to keep secrets. For example, the Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights stipulates that "nothing in this Agreement shall be interpreted as: (a) requiring members to provide any information that they believe will infringe upon their basic security interests once it is made public". The Patent Cooperation Treaty also stipulates that in addition to not restricting the necessary measures taken by each contracting state to safeguard national security, it also does not restrict the freedom of each contracting state to restrict the right of its nationals or residents to file international applications in order to protect its overall economic interests. Most of the patent laws in various countries stipulate that if the information described in the patent application is likely to damage national defense, the patent director has the right not to publish it. As for the specific practice, the patent law does not stipulate it. In practice, the national defense departments of some countries will take away the above inventions, keep them confidential and try to use them, and compensate the applicants. Some countries grant patents to applications that pass the examination and use them internally without publishing them. The second method not only achieves the purpose of confidentiality, but also can be promoted and used internally in a controlled way, which is more suitable for China.