: Can I legally use experimental items in my book? I am looking to write a book and include real experimental weapons and aircrafts. Is this possible or could I be sued. Say for example if

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If this is classified information and you only know about it because you have a high-level security clearance, than publishing the information in any form could put you in danger of criminal charges.

But assuming that this is publicly available information, so that there's no issue of espionage or treason charges, and you're just thinking about copyright or trademark violation: No, there's no issue. You are completely free to describe objects that exist in the real world. Just like: If you mention that a character drove a car, car makers can't sue you for mentioning their product without permission. Or if you say the character put on a shirt, the National Association of Clothing Manufacturers cannot sue you. If you mention a specific brand name, you do have to use it properly, like you can't write "coke" with a small "c" or the Coca-Cola company lawyers may be contacting you. And of course if you write disparagingly of a particular brand -- if you say that Coke causes brain cancer or some such -- the owner of that trademark might have grounds to sue you for libel. Whether they'd win would depend on just what you said, etc, but that's getting on a different subject.

BTW, under U.S. law, any information published by the government is public domain: it is not copyrighted. The reasoning is that as taxpayers paid to produce it, it belongs to the people and not to the government. There is something of a loophole in the law that if a private company produces some document or pictures or whatever, it can sell the copyright to the government, so if you see "Copyright 2015 United States Army" or some other branch of government, it was a copyright the government bought.

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In both of the examples you gave, I would assume that there is some level of public knowledge or information that has already been shared publicly. As a result, there would be no reason for you to not be able to write about it.

One way to help you answer your own question is to ask yourself how you came to know about it. If you read about it online or thrugh a public forum or any other source where information was shared freely, then you probably wouldn't have any cause for concern.

If you read about it in a magazine article or a book that was previously published by another author, then you have to be careful about how you use the information. I wouldn't be concerned so much about violating a copyright or borrowing from someone else's ideas, ut I would be concerned about the legitimacy of the information that person provides. Is that person a credible source, where did they get their information, and what amount of research did they do before writing their work? These are questions you should ask yourself before deciding to expand on the source information.

If you do end up using information from other sources, you will be able to circumvent some of you problems by attributing the information to the original source, assuming it isn't your own first hand knowledge. If it is based on your own first hand knowledge, then you need to make sure that you aren't bound by any type of non-disclosure agreement before proceeding.

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I could be wrong, but I wonder what you could possibly know, unless you worked for them, that a government, etc. would get upset about you publishing. If it is public knowledge it is exactly that.

Anthony Horowitz published a book where everyone given a particular injection would be killed when a radio transmitter was turned on activating the ingredients of the injection. He said, and I believe him because I can imagine how it could be done, that it was technology that exists today.

That being said, I have decided not to publish a story where terrorists completely disrupt the British transport system. The way they could do it would be cheap, hard to detect and quite devastating. I decided that it wasn't for publication because someone might actually implement it. I have to consider the greater public good.

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If the item is a legitimate experiment from the military and it's not public knowledge (e.g. you have security clearances with access to that info), I would most definitely ask a lawyer, but my gut says no. If it is public knowledge, then pretty much anything is fair game, especially if you're writing fiction. Though to ease your mind, you may still want to ask a lawyer.

Keep in mind, that if you're writing the book now, that technology could be widely publicized or possibly even out-of-date by the time it's published, depending on what route you decide to publish through.

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