I noticed that claim as well; There's a story floating around that was quickly quashed in the media of an object appearing to detonate in a bright flash by some tourists, around the time of the EAS "accidental activation".
Anyone know if there's a way to track the # of weekly EAS test activations US wide, and see if any trends appear?
IIRC it's been on the books for 70+ years that the us government could give the middle finger to patents and such if it was in the 'public good', and just make an invention public domain. With the exception of WW2 (Possibly?) it's never been invoked.