4. the right of the Department to regain ownership due to public 
interest considerations or the institution's failure to take 
effective steps to commercialize the invention. 
Stanford and the University of Alabama each hold one of the 65 IPA's now 
being administered by the Department. 
Second, under grants and contracts with institutions having no identified 
technology transfer capability, the Department utilizes a provision 
deferring determination of ownership until an invention has been made. 
Under the deferred determination provision, an innovating institution 
may petition the Department for ownership of an invention after it is 
identified. In the past, approximately 90 percent of all such petitions 
have been granted on the basis of a satisfactory institution plan for 
development or licensing, subject, however, the conditions similar to 
those contained in the Department's IPA's. 
The Department's normal policy of allocating invention rights is designed 
to facilitate the transfer of technology from the bench to the market- 
place, by assuring that the innovating institution has the right to 
convey those intellectual property rights necessary to induce industrial 
investment and continued development of inventions generated with 
Department support. Only the IPA policy, however, assures a management 
focal point in the innovating institution which is trained to solicit 
and establish timely rights in intellectual property prior to invention. 
We have been advised by the Department Patent Branch that 167 patent 
applications were filed from 1969 through the fall of 1974 under IPA's. 
Approximately $24 million is committed to the development of inventions 
on the basis of licenses granted under these patent applications. 
Meanwhile, we are advised that the Department, under the deferred 
determination provision, has granted 162 of the institutions' 178 
petitions for ownership. Approximately $53 million was invested or 
committed to development under the licenses awarded. The commitment of 
private risk capital in these instances is viewed as evidence that a 
licensable patent right is a primary factor in the successful transfer 
of Department research results to industry and the marketplace. 
It indeed appears that the incentives provided by Department patent 
policy have encouraged the development of new technology in general and 
afforded patent protection for some inventions to the economic benefit 
of the United States. 
The control of DNA research envisioned by the guidelines, however, 
requires a delicate balance between need for rapid exchange of informa- 
tion unhampered by undue concern for patent rights and a potential for 
achieving uniformity in safety practices through conditions of licensure 
under patent agreements. 
1-2 
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