Little problem of big collaboration
I do not want to repeat all the well-known problems in the DIC - they are not known only to the lazy or indifferent. I want to say very little about the “small part” of innovative development: about the intellectual component. This “piece” to a considerable degree influences the effective policy in the field of economic turnover of finished products of the military-industrial complex and engineering design solutions associated with such products.
In fact, the problematic of the intellectual component is quite voluminous and multifaceted, so I will not dwell on the internal aspect of the problems (there are more than enough of them), but I will only say about the “part of the external aspect”: the issue of protecting the rights to information contained in the design, technological and operational documentation for defense products transferred to foreign contractors.
The above information is the main result of scientific, technical and development activities, and the product is the materialization of such a result. I remind you, this result was obtained at the expense of public funds (our taxes with you). And yet, according to the current practice, the cost of the product (and therefore the license) is “weighted down” by at least 30% by the availability of intellectual property, which is contained in the materials of the design, technological and operational documentation.
So, for the period from about the middle of 50 to the end of 80 of the last century, the Soviet Union transferred to foreign (including gratuitously - at that time friendly) states about two and a half thousand licenses for the production of weapons and military equipment and, accordingly, , the same number of sets of engineering documentation. By the beginning of 90-s, most of these products began to be produced (real production continued) inappropriately, since the Soviet licenses had already expired. Moreover, these products were exported to third countries (according to various sources, such exports can be estimated at a total amount from 6 to 10 billion dollars) without any coordination with the Soviet and then the Russian side. The most striking example is the Kalashnikov assault rifle.
It is clear that the information under consideration has always been and will be the object of close attention to intelligence services of all stripes. But we are talking about legal (contractual) relations. It is also clear that it is very difficult to control such counterfeit due to the specifics of the legal regime. It is especially difficult to track the volume of production, a little easier fact and the volume of exports. Difficult, but possible. The question "why do this" I think there is no need to ask. But as you can see, someone asked him himself and answered negatively.
But that is not all. Major foreign manufacturers, especially in recent years, began to conduct extensive work on the legal assignment of exclusive rights (intellectual rights) to the information contained in the transmitted design and technological documentation. Information that is inventions and owned by domestic developers. A sad situation has arisen, in which information about products and technologies, the development of which spent years of work of Soviet (Russian) scientists and specialists, billions of budget funds, including in the implementation of state armaments programs, forms the basis of foreign monopoly rights.
No, I’ll finally put the question: do you need to do something with all this (why and who to do)?
Information