Secret inventions in ensuring national security: international legal aspects

The article examines the international legal aspects of the institution of secret inventions in the context of ensuring national security. It has been found that international treaties relating to intellectual property issues to which Ukraine has acceded, namely the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Patent Law Treaty, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Ukraine, ofthe other partcontain provisions on so-called “security exceptions.” In practice, they provide a real opportunity to use certain mechanisms to protect the interests of the state in relation to secret inventions. The regulatory framework for the organization of the activities of the The Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the STCU) as an intergovernmental structure has been analyzed, with emphasis on the established facts of shortcomings in ensuring the protection of intellectual property during the implementation of the agreement on the activities of the STCUand the lack of state control over the implementation of projects of the above-mentioned organization. A well-founded conclusion has been made about the need to audit the activities of intergovernmental organizations in which domestic inventors participate and as a result of which inventions (and potentially secret inventions) are created. The risks of «patent migration» and emigration of critical knowledge carriers, which pose a potential threat to national security, are outlined. The issue of multinational inventions created within the framework of international scientific and technical cooperation and the challenges associated with filing initial applications for such objects were also examined. Practical recommendations are proposed for improving national legislation in the field of protecting secret inventions, supporting foreign patenting, and ensuring national interests when concluding and executing agreements on transnational scientific cooperation.