Title 15
SECTION 296.11
296.11 Intellectual property rights and procedures.
§ 296.11 Intellectual property rights and procedures.(a) Rights in data. Except as otherwise specifically provided for in an award, authors may copyright any work that is subject to copyright and was developed under an award. When claim is made to copyright, the applicable copyright notice of 17 U.S.C. 401 or 402 and acknowledgment of Federal government sponsorship shall be affixed to the work when and if the work is delivered to the Federal government, is published, or is deposited for registration as a published work in the U.S. Copyright Office. The copyright owner shall grant to the Federal government, and others acting on its behalf, a paid up, nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license for all such works to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use the work for Federal purposes.
(b) Invention rights. (1) Ownership of inventions developed from assistance provided by the Program under § 296.3(a) shall be governed by the requirements of chapter 18 of title 35 of the United States Code.
(2) Ownership of inventions developed from assistance provided by the Program under § 296.3(b) may vest in any participant in the joint venture, as agreed by the members of the joint venture, notwithstanding section 202(a) and (b) of title 35, United States Code. Title to any such invention shall not be transferred or passed, except to a participant in the joint venture, until the expiration of the first patent obtained in connection with such invention. In accordance with § 296.8, joint ventures will provide to NIST a copy of their written agreement that defines the disposition of ownership rights among the participants of the joint venture, including the principles governing the disposition of intellectual property developed by contractors and subcontractors, as appropriate, and that complies with these regulations.
(3) The United States reserves a nonexclusive, nontransferable, irrevocable paid-up license, to practice or have practiced for or on behalf of the United States any inventions developed using assistance under this section, but shall not in the exercise of such license publicly disclose proprietary information related to the license. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit the licensing to any company of intellectual property rights arising from assistance provided under this section.
(4) Should the last existing participant in a joint venture cease to exist prior to the expiration of the first patent obtained in connection with any invention developed from assistance provided under the Program, title to such patent must be transferred or passed to a United States entity that can commercialize the technology in a timely fashion.
(c) Patent procedures. Each award by the Program will 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 recipient through the Interagency Edison extramural invention reporting system (iEdison), including the subject inventions of recipients, including members of the joint venture (if applicable), subrecipients, and contractors of the recipient or joint venture members.