4 
(1) a royalty- free license permitting the Government and those 
functioning under Government direction to use the invention, 
(2) a limit on the term of any exclusive license granted 
("exclusive" = permission to grant only one license for a 
limited time), 
(3) authority to withdraw specified grants from the Institutional 
Patent Agreements, 
(4) a right of the Department to regain ownership if the insti- 
tution breaches the terms of the IPA or fails to take effec- 
tive steps to commercialize the invention, and 
(5) a right to disclose the invention to the public after a U.S. 
patent application has been filed. 
Stanford and the University of California each hold one of the 
72 IPAs now being administered by the Department. 
For those institutions that have not entered into a patent agree- 
ment with the Department, determination of ownership is deferred 
until an invention has been made, at which time an institution may 
petition the Department for ownership of the invention. In the past, 
approximately 90 percent of all such petitions have been granted on 
the basis of a satisfactory plan proposed by the institution for 
development or licensing. 
The IPA provides a mechanism to facilitate the conversion of new 
knowledge from the research laboratory to marketable products, by 
assuring that the institution where the discovery is made can grant 
licenses for continued development of inventions generated with Depart- 
ment support. The Department Patent Branch reports that 167 patent 
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