United States: Licensing Technology Developed with Public Funds: Should Patent Assertion Entities Receive Exclusive Licenses to Federally Owned Patents?

Co-author: Sean Reilly, general counsel of Askeladden and senior vice president and associate general counsel of The Clearing House (TCH) Payments Company, where he directs intellectual property issues.

When it passed the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980,¹ Congress aimed to "promote the utilization of inventions arising from federally supported research or development."² The act's better-known provisions permit universities, small businesses, and nonprofit institutions that use federal funds for research to retain title to patents on inventions discovered through that research.³ But for patents that the United States owns, the act also explicitly authorizes federal agencies to issue nonexclusive, exclusive, and partially exclusive licenses if certain conditions are met.

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Originally published by ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law, Landslide Magazine

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