“Since 1952, the US has had on the books the Invention Secrecy Act that permits the federal government to keep a patent secret, even ones developed independently of government labs. “
True. About 20 years ago, we ran into this. We had to file a lawsuit to lift the governments injunction, so than we could make our product.
Hmmm. Perhaps it was your model of anti-mosquito laser cannon with automatic targeting that I bought a couple of years ago.