The material contained documents, computers and other digital storage media containing defense secrets. Information for which strict rules have been set for how it can be stored and handled. Documents news has been given access to show that the seizure came after what the security authorities describe as “a significant security risk”. The seizure was made at Oslo Patentkontor AS, the only consulting company that was security cleared to work with defense patents in Norway. The company had fully Norwegian roots going all the way back to 1911. Until recently, the company had been owned by the employees themselves. But in the spring of 2022, the business entered the international patent group AWA. Then the alarm bells went off at the National Security Agency (NSM). NSM is responsible for overseeing that secrets affecting national security remain secret. – When we registered an ownership structure that has gone from being nationally controlled to international, there was cause for concern, says interim director Lars Christian Aamodt in NSM to news. Lars Christian Aamodt has been appointed as interim director of NSM. It was employees of the security authority who investigated the new ownership structure with links to China. Photo: Øyvind Bye Skille / news And it was part of the new ownership structure in particular that attracted attention: – It is a concern that the company appears with an office in China. The Norwegian patent consultants were now employed by a group that had subsidiaries in a number of countries. Among these were also companies in China and Hong Kong. This led to the NSM deciding to carry out an inspection. Patents, secrets and weapons technology Patents protect inventions, so that only the person behind them has rights to the invention. But for some patents, entirely separate and stricter security rules apply. Inventions that may be of importance to the national defense are regulated in a separate law. – It can apply to weapons technology, and if it goes astray it can in principle be used against us, says NSM director Aamodt. – Or they can understand how our systems work. These are typical defense secrets. The seizure NSM took from the Oslo Patent Office contained a number of different types of material. Some of it was classified SECRET. Photo: Hallgeir Aunan / news Table with both documents, computer and sealed bags with graded material from the Oslo Patent Office. Photo: Hallgeir Aunan / news Computer marked SECRET from seizure NSM took at Oslo Patent office. Photo: Hallgeir Aunan / news The material contained, among other things, documents and digital storage media. Photo: Hallgeir Aunan / news news is not aware of exactly which secret patents the Oslo Patent Office worked on, but there was talk of patents related to defense secrets since the Act on Defense Important Inventions applied to the work. Documents that news has been given access to also show that the information the consultants handled was highly classified, up to what corresponds to the level of secret under the Security Act. It also emerges that there was talk of patents on behalf of other allied countries. There is extensive cooperation within the defense industry between Norway and Germany. New submarines and tanks for the Norwegian and German armed forces are among the projects the countries are collaborating on. news is aware that the Norwegian patent consultants worked with secret information from both France and Germany. After the seizures at the Oslo Patent Office, a letter was sent to the German authorities with a warning that secrets must no longer be shared with the Norwegian consulting company. Norway is to buy new submarines from Germany. Here, defense ministers Bjørn Arild Gram and Boris Pistorius from Norway and Germany are seen marking the start of the production of new submarines. Photo: Marcus Brandt/DPA / NTB Packed up the secrets and took them with us – When we carried out the inspection we saw that the security system was not intact, says Aamodt in NSM. Aamodt says that NSM concluded that security was not good enough. Photo: Øyvind Bye Skille / news NSM carried out an unannounced inspection on 7 August last year in the premises of the Oslo Patent Office. Three employees of the security authority had arranged a meeting. When they arrived at the premises, they stated that they would also carry out an investigation of the security situation. After the inspection, the NSM concluded that the Safety Act had been breached on four points. The company denies to news that the security system was not intact (see longer response from the company below). But for the NSM chief, shortcomings in the security system were decisive for them to extract all the secrets: – Then we have to protect the values. So we took the values with us out of the company. NSM chose to withdraw the clearance the consultants had to be able to work with secrets. At the same time, over a year had passed since NSM became aware of the change in ownership structure. In the spring of 2022, they became aware of the change. They only carried out inspections in August 2023. – And then things could have happened that could have been a security threat? – Yes, I have no reason to speculate on that, but there is a window in which there is some uncertainty, Lars Christian Aamodt answers to news. Central to this was the new ownership structure. NSM also responded that they had not been formally notified of the changes in ownership. Although the Norwegian company Oslo Patentkontor AS (OPK) still existed in the company register, all the employees had now been transferred to the AWA group. The work in Norway had also been co-located in the group’s Norwegian premises. – What were you worried about in terms of the subsidiaries based in Hong Kong and Beijing? – We know, based on the threat assessments by both the Intelligence Service and the Police’s security service, that other countries are interested in our secrets. Then our concern is based, among other things, on the fact that we do not know how internal information flow takes place in this system, replies interim director Lars Christian Aamodt in NSM. In PST’s threat assessments, it is revealed, among other things, that the service believes that China conducts active intelligence against Norway. They write that it is challenging to distinguish between state and private actors. This is because, according to Chinese law, both companies and individuals can be required to assist intelligence. According to NSM, the findings during the inspection created a security situation that did not meet the strict requirements for protecting defense secrets: NSM emphasizes that they are not aware that classified information has actually gone astray. In the decision to withdraw the company’s security clearance, they refer to general security breaches, and not specifically to China or AWA’s subsidiaries there. AWA believes the secrets were protected all along The head of the new company in Norway, AWA Norway, responds on behalf of both Oslo Patentkontor AS (OPK) and the current company structure. Carsten Lous is head of AWA in Norway. Photo: Bo Mathisen / AWA – It is NSM’s task to be concerned with safety, and both OPK and AWA respect their work, writes Carsten Lous who heads AWA Norway in a written statement. The Norway manager in the AWA group expresses that they understand the strict requirements for security in order to be able to work with defense secrets. At the same time, AWA did not agree with NSM’s decision to withdraw the security clearance due to the security conditions and the changes in ownership. The company believes that the security conditions had not changed, because they kept the Oslo patent office as a company, continued the security measures, and kept the graded patent cases there. – To ensure that the security system was kept intact, no changes were made to the physical environment, security installations, access to classified material or the security-approved personnel linked to the material, writes AWA chief Lous in his statement. Carsten Lous in AWA Norway reacts to the NSM manager’s statements that one could not be sure how the flow of information was within the group, and concerns related to subsidiaries in China. – It is difficult to see how this material could be part of any information flow. – The material was protected in a restricted area. – Has OPK/AWA leaked defense secrets to China? – No, says Carsten Lous. He also states that Oslo Patentkontor AS and AWA believe that the notification of changed ownership was done as it should be. AWA in Norway is based in this business building in Oslo. Photo: Hallgeir Aunan / news The AWA chief states that they did not complain about the decision by NSM to separate Oslo Patentkontor AS from working on secret defense patents. This was because they anyway planned to apply for a new security clearance for the Norwegian company AWA Norway. – AWA moved into new premises on 1 December 2023 and are confident that, through a newly initiated application process, they will get their own supplier clearance approved in the same way as AWA’s sister companies in Sweden and Denmark, writes Lous in his statement to news. – Does OPK/AWA Norway self-criticize anything in this process? – In retrospect, we see that a separate security clearance could have been applied for for AWA during the transition period in the premises at the time, even if it would be relatively short-lived. The lesson will be taken into account in the work going forward when AWA has now applied for its own approval in new premises, writes Carsten Lous in AWA Norway. China: – Groundless suspicions Chinese authorities react to the mention and concerns from the National Security Authority (NSM). – It goes without saying that having offices in China cannot be the only basis for categorizing a company as risky. Such suspicions are simply groundless, writes the Chinese embassy in Norway in a statement by e-mail to news. China’s embassy is based in Oslo, and has responded to news in writing. Photo: Morten Holm / NTB China asks NSM and other Norwegian services to put aside prejudice and stop making generalisations. – They should rather use their forces against real threats so that they better serve the Norwegian people, writes the embassy. Furthermore, the embassy highlights the need for cooperation and mutual trust in the year which marks 70 years of diplomatic relations between Norway and China. – China will continue to commit to an open attitude – to work together with Norway to deal with common challenges to the benefit of both countries. news has also submitted the statements from NSM about concerns about company structure and offices in China for the two subsidiaries in Beijing and Hong Kong. The AWA group has replied that the two offices cannot be interviewed, but that the managing director for the entire group has the following statement: – AWA is a global brand, and companies under the AWA brand work very seriously with confidentiality and security in all customer relationships. Specifically with regard to graded patents, AWA is security approved in both Denmark and Sweden, and OPK has been security approved in Norway for many decades. It is therefore incorporated into our daily work processes that we live up to the authorities’ safety requirements, says managing director Sidsel Hauge in AWA.
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Feared secret defense patents on the way in China – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
