Every Patent Is a Spy Report: How Patent Filings Are Now the World’s Largest Open-Source Intelligence Database

For more than two centuries, the patent system has rested on a simple bargain: inventors publicly disclose their inventions in exchange for a limited monopoly. That bargain assumes disclosure primarily benefits competitors, researchers, and the public. Today, however, the audience has changed. Patent filings are now mined not only by competitors, but by governments, intelligence agencies, sovereign investors, and increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems capable of analyzing mil