Intellectual property rights; publication of research results.
15 C.F.R. § 295.8
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a)(1) Patent rights. Title to inventions arising from assistance provided by the Program must vest in a company or companies incorporated in the United States. Joint ventures shall provide to NIST a copy of their written agreement which defines the disposition of ownership rights among the members of the joint venture, and their contractors and subcontractors as appropriate, that complies with the first sentence of this paragraph. The United States will reserve a nonexclusive, nontransferable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice or have practiced for or on behalf of the United States any such intellectual property, but shall not, in the exercise of such license, publicly disclose proprietary information related to the license. Title to any such intellectual property shall not be transferred or passed, except to a company incorporated in the United States, until the expiration of the first patent obtained in connection with such intellectual property. Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to prohibit the licensing to any company of intellectual property rights arising from assistance provided under this section.
(2) Patent procedures. Each award by the Program shall include provisions assuring the retention of a governmental use license in each disclosed invention, and the government's retention of march-in rights. In addition, each award by the Program will contain procedures regarding reporting of subject inventions by the funding Recipient to the Program, including the subject inventions of members of the joint venture (if applicable) in which the funding Recipient is a participant, contractors and subcontractors of the funding Recipient. The funding Recipient shall disclose such subject inventions to the Program within two months after the inventor discloses it in writing to the Recipient's designated representative responsible for patent matters. The disclosure shall consist of a detailed, written report which provides the Program with the following: the title of the present invention; the names of all inventors; the name and address of the assignee (if any); an acknowledgment that the United States has rights in the subject invention; the filing date of the present invention, or, in the alternative, a statement identifying that the Recipient determined that filing was not feasible; an abstract of the disclosure; a description or summary of the present invention; the background of the present invention or the prior art; a description of the preferred embodiments; and what matter is claimed. Upon issuance of the patent, the funding Recipient or Recipients must notify the Program accordingly, providing it with the Serial Number of the patent as issued, the date of issuance, a copy of the disclosure as issued, and if appropriate, the name, address, and telephone number(s) of an assignee.
(b) Copyrights: Except as otherwise specifically provided for in an Award, funding recipients under the Program may establish claim to copyright subsisting in any data first produced in the performance of the award. When claim is made to copyright, the funding recipient shall affix the applicable copyright notice of 17 U.S.C. 401 or 402 and acknowledgment of Government sponsorship to the data when and if the data are delivered to the Government, are published, or are deposited for registration as a published work in the U.S. Copyright Office. The funding recipient shall grant to the Government, and others acting on its behalf, a paid up, nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license for all such data to reproduce, prepare derivative works, perform publicly and display publicly, and for data other than computer software to distribute to the public by or on behalf of the Government.
(c) Publication of research results: The decision on whether or not to publish research results will be made by the funding recipient(s). Unpublished intellectual property owned and developed by any business or joint research and development venture receiving funding or by any member of such a joint venture may not be disclosed by any officer or employee of the Federal Government except in accordance with a written agreement between the owner or developer and the Program. The licenses granted to the Government under § 295.8(b) shall not be considered a waiver of this requirement.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-15.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026