Actually, the whole "who owns the rights" gets really complicated with defense contracts. These days most governments are including explicit clauses into their contracts that when they buy it, they buy everything, including future design rights, including the rights to hand the designs to 3rd parties for additional design and development.
I'm told that the paperwork entailed in a single mid-sized DOD contract will fill a C-130 Hercules loaded on standard pallets. As in, they will literally fly a C-130 out there, and you will completely fill it with contract paperwork, shrink wrapped and stacked onto standard pallets in the appropriate Legal Paper loading configuration.
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