The NIST intellectual property (IP) portfolio, like any resource waiting to be utilized, is filled with potential and promise. Proper management of IP is essential to ensure the greatest realization of impact in scientific, societal and/or economic value. To realize the commercial value of an invention, NIST needs to license its rights of a promising invention to a partner. As a federal laboratory, NIST does not have the authority, or resources, to take research results to the marketplace. We must rely on partners who license NIST’s rights and take on the risks and costs to attempt to commercialize an invention. There is a NIST order for licensing, much like patents.
Licensing of federally developed technologies is one of the primary mechanisms used to create incentives for industry to invest the resources necessary to develop and commercialize cutting-edge technologies. Successful development and commercialization create benefits to the economy and contributes to competitiveness and domestic economic growth. The ability to grant licenses to the nonfederal sector to develop and commercialize government-owned technologies helps protect federally developed innovations, which wouldn’t be further developed into commercial products or services otherwise. The terms and conditions, under which federal IP is licensed, varies depending on many factors, including: the extent of development of the technology, the financial resources needed to further develop the technology for consumer use, fields of use, and projected market impact.
The goal of federal patents is to achieve practical application, which broadly means commercialization. There are many routes to achieve commercialization, but NIST must carefully mesh the various interests to achieve the optimal results.
Licensing is the complement to a patent right. While the patent excludes others, licensing grants permission. Federal licensing must follow the procedures in 35 USC 209 and 37 CFR 404. At NIST, and lik ..
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