Rights to Federally Funded Inventions and Licensing of Government Owned Inventions

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announces revisions to regulations in order to make several technical corrections; reorganize certain subsections; remove outdated and/or unnecessary sections; institute a reporting requirement on federal agencies; and provide clarifications on definitions, communications, process for exercising march-in rights, filing of provisional patent applications, electronic filing of Bayh-Dole related reporting, the purpose of royalties on licenses from the Federal Government, and the processes for granting exclusive, co-exclusive, and partially exclusive licenses and for appeals. NIST has not adopted in this final rule a provision in the proposed rule regarding exercising march-in rights on the sole basis of product pricing. Instead, NIST intends to engage with stakeholders and agencies with the goal of developing a comprehensive framework for agencies considering the use of march-in provisions.