PATENT POLICY 223 



larly valuable to NDRC for it meant avoiding a loss of time while the 

 contractor familiarized himself with a new field) and might result in some 

 cases in inventions they might be expected to make at some future date at 

 the appropriate place in their own programs. In some cases the Government 

 contract involved minor adaptations of past inventions made by the con- 

 tractors, and in such cases the contribution to the final product attributable 

 to the work financed by the Government was relatively insignificant. But 

 under the patent clause thus far offered by NDRC a company might be 

 excluded from using its inventions under an NDRC contract in its own 

 business, and might even find its competitors licensed by the Government 

 while licenses were refused to it. 



The Army and Navy had rarely, if ever, asked for rights as extensive as 

 those demanded by NDRC. Instead they took licenses which varied in dif- 

 ferent situations but left commercial rights in the contractor. NDRC was 

 created to aid the country to get ready for war, not to cure any inequities 

 which might have grown up under the patent system created by Congress. 

 The position expressed in the patent clause was hardly as important as get- 

 ting the country ready for a technological war if the situation was as serious 

 as it seemed when NDRC was created. It was true, of course, that many 

 patriotic citizens did not regard the situation as serious, and the compul- 

 sion exerted by an appeal to patriotism in time of war was lacking. 



Such a compulsion might have caused some companies to accept the pro- 

 posed patent clause in time of war when they were unwilling to do so in 

 time of peace. There was no occasion to find out, for negotiations could 

 not be permitted to drag until the United States entered the war. Drag, 

 they did, for months, but not at the expense of the scientific research pro- 

 gram. The principal companies involved in the early negotiations over the 

 patent clause were General Electric, Radio Corporation of America, West- 

 ern Electric and Westinghouse Electric. None of them was willing to ac- 

 cept the NDRC patent clause; and until agreement could be reached, no 

 contract could be signed. All four companies, and others later, worked 

 under letters of intent, expediting the needed research and relying upon 

 later agreement to pave the way for reimbursement for their costs. 



The Patent Advisory Committee was given the task of obtaining agree- 

 ment upon a patent clause. Extended negotiations were had with proposed 

 contractors. At its meeting on January 17, 1941, the NDRC adopted in 

 principle a recommendation of the Patent Advisory Committee which in 

 essence provided that the Government should receive a royalty-free, irrev- 

 ocable license for military, naval and national defense purposes under in- 

 ventions made under a contract. Minor modifications were made in the 

 clause which was textually approved at the March 7, 1941, meeting. A 

 further minor modification was made in June 1941. With the formal 

 changes made to fit it into the revised OSRD contract form, this patent 



