[hn8788]

I forget where I read it, but my understanding is that the secret patent would become public if you try to publicly patent it. I don't know if there would be any compensation for you, but I don't think you'd have to deal with patent infringement.

[jjoonathan]

Yeah, you just have to deal with sunk costs and an IP rugpull. Great.

I bet they don't even refund the patent fees.

[bdowling]

It's illegal for a US inventor to file a patent application in a foreign country without either (a) obtaining a foreign filing license first, or (b) applying for a US patent and waiting at least 6 months. [0] The idea there is to give the Patent Office a chance to review the invention for national security.

[0] https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s140.html

[dnautics]

Iirc this happened with encryption schemes. RSA maybe?