Patents for Victory: Disseminating Enemy Technical Information During World War II

In national emergencies governments have the power to suspend patent rights. During World War II, the U.S. government seized tens of thousands of foreign-owned patents and other forms of intellectual property. The agency responsible for this was the Office of the Alien Property Custodian (APC). The APC was charged with making the technical information disclosed in these patents available to American industries for use in the war effort. To accomplish this mission the agency's Patent Information and Marketing Section established patent libraries nationwide; exhibited patent information at trade shows and conferences; published and sold catalogs, indexes and abstracts of seized patents; and distributed patent information to other agencies and libraries.