6 
(A) Department Patent Policy 
In June, shortly before the release of the Guidelines, Stanford 
University and the University of California asked NIH to review DHEW 
policies relating to the patenting of recombinant DNA research inventions 
developed under NIH grants or contracts. Under current DHEW patent 
regulations, invention rights to discoveries developed under the Depart- 
ment's research support are normally allocated in either of two ways: 
• The Department may enter into an Institutional Patent Agreement 
(IPA) with a university or other nonprofit institution that has 
adequate mechanisms for administering patents on inventions. 
The IPA provides the institution the first option to own all 
inventions made in performance of Department grants or contracts, 
subject to a number of conditions deemed necessary to protect the 
public interest. 
• For those institutions that have not entered into a patent agreement 
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. 
The NIH solicited opinions from a number of different groups in the 
scientific community and the public and private sectors concerning those 
departmental patent policies, with respect to recombinant DNA research 
inventions. An analysis of the issues raised by the commentators is 
under review by the Federal Interagency Committee. 
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