Summary

GAO supports the provisions of the Technology Commercialization Act of 1993, which would increase the up-front royalty payments to investors and limit the amount of remaining income that can be used for nonscientific purposes. GAO believes that these measure should stimulate federal scientists' interest in reporting inventions and spur federal laboratory directors to encourage technology transfer. Although GAO is uncertain what the impact would be of assigning title to intellectual property to Cooperative Research and Development Agreement collaborators, industry representatives told GAO that ownership and control over technology is important to developing new products. In addition, procedural impediments, such as the lack of ready access to advice on patenting inventions or the slow and arbitrary nature of selecting inventions to patent, continue to diminish incentives for technology transfer at federal laboratories.