Bayh-Dole Act

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 (35 U.S.C. 200-212) is the US law that lets universities, other nonprofits, and small businesses elect to keep title to inventions made with federal funding, in exchange for obligations to disclose the invention, pursue patents, prefer US manufacturing, share royalties with inventors, and grant the government a license.

How it works in a university-industry collaboration

Before 1980, inventions from federally funded research mostly belonged to the funding agency. Bayh-Dole reversed the default. The standard patent rights clause at 37 CFR 401.14 is written into every federal funding agreement and sets the deadlines: disclose within two months of the inventor's report, elect title within two years, file for a patent within a year of that. It also gives the government a nonexclusive license and march-in rights.

For a company sponsoring research, the consequence is that any project involving federal funding carries obligations the university can't contract away, which is why a university will rarely assign a sponsor outright ownership of results. The Supreme Court held in Stanford v. Roche (2011) that the Act doesn't vest title in the university automatically, because rights begin with the inventor, so universities rely on assignment agreements with their researchers, and a sponsor should ask whether those are in place. How much the Act itself caused the growth in university patenting is debated. Mowery, Nelson, Sampat, and Ziedonis found that university patenting was rising before 1980 and that Bayh-Dole was an important but not a determinative factor (Research Policy, 2001).

Translation Box: Bayh-Dole Act

On the academic side: the compliance frame for every invention disclosure, with deadlines the technology transfer office tracks, and the reason the university owns what the lab invents.

On the industry side: often heard as "the government owns it," which is wrong. The university owns it, the government holds a license, and the sponsor negotiates with the university.

What Helikon does with it

Helikon doesn't track Bayh-Dole deadlines. A project records whether a signed contract is required and keeps the agreement and its dates with the project, and the agreement is where the federal clause lives.