UK patents are being declared state secrets more than three times as often as those filed in the US, according to information released to New Scientist.rnAn average of nine secrecy orders were imposed for every 10,000 patents filed in the UK since 2003, compared with less than three per 10,000 filed in the US, figures released for the first time by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) reveal.rnThe difference is surprising because the US government spends far more of its overall R&D budget on military research than does the UK. In 2009, the Pentagon spent $80 billion, or 57 per cent of the US public research budget, on defence R&D - against the UK Ministry of Defence's $3.4 billion, or 9 per cent of overall UK R&D funding.
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