A patent would mean it was publicly available information. You're thinking of a trade secret. In any case, this won't apply to an actual paper (and without a paper, what are we talking about?) because the paper is supposed to describe what is going on.

Possibly a trade secret as marvelous as the famous South Sea Bubble instance described by Charles Mackay:

But the most absurd and pre-posterous of all, and which shewed, more completely than any other, the utter madness of the people, was one started by an unknown ad-venturer, entitled "A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." Were not the fact stated by scores of credible witnesses, it would be impossible to be-lieve that any person could have been duped by such a project. The man of genius who essayed this bold and successful inroad upon public credulity, merely stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a million, in five thousand shares of £100. each, deposit £2 per share. Each subscriber, paying his deposit, would be entitled to £100 per annum per share. How this immense profit was to be ob-tained, he did not condescend to inform them at that time, but pro-mised that in a month full particulars should be duly announced, and a call made for the remaining £98 of the subscription. , Next morning, at nine o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at three o'clock, he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of £2000. He was philosopher enough to be contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again.