At the end of Fiscal Year 2007, there were a total of 5,002 invention secrecy orders in effect under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, up from 4,942 the year before.

U.S. government agencies imposed secrecy orders on 53 patent applications filed by private inventors in FY 2007, prohibiting their disclosure or export, according to statistics obtained by Secrecy News this week from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The so-called "John Doe" secrecy orders imposed on private inventors are a constitutional anomaly since they appear to infringe on private speech. But their constitutionality has never been successfully challenged in court.

See the latest invention secrecy statistics here. Related background on invention secrecy is here.

Source: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/10/invention_secrecy_up_slightly.html

Via KeelyNet.com/whatsnew