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“TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER COMMERCIALIZATION ACT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1835 on Oct. 19, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER COMMERCIALIZATION ACT
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speech of
HON. MARK UDALL
of colorado
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, October 17, 2000
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 209, the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act conference report. This report is the product of over 2 years of hard work on the part of the Committee on Science, the Senate Commerce Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Administration.
Developing a version of the legislation that is acceptable to all these parties has been no small feat in the realm of patent policy, and I want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner, Ranking Democratic Member George Brown, Subcommittee Chairwoman Morella, and Subcommittee Ranking Democrat Barcia for their hard work.
H.R. 209 is the result of the first comprehensive review of federal patent policy in 15 years. The 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which it amends, has made a major difference in the commercialization of federal inventions. Before Bayh-Dole passed, it was relatively rare for inventions resulting from federal research to reach their market potential. As many as 20,000 federal inventions were patented but not licensed. Only two or three inventions at that point had achieved royalties as high as
$1,000,000, and the total royalty stream for the entire Federal Government at that time was less than the royalties received by a midsized research university today.
Bayh-Dole has opened major opportunities to research universities like the University of Colorado. It has been a major contributor to the outreach activities of contractor-operated laboratories like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It has led to benefits for federally employed inventors and their laboratories at the Department of Commerce and throughout the government.
Over the nearly 20 years since enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act, we've learned of the need for some improvements. The bill before us takes advantage of the lessons learned and is intended to make the law more user-friendly. It also updates the act to reflect the new ways that industry now gets and shares information.
I am also pleased that the bill includes an amendment promoted by some of my Democratic colleagues on the Science Committee that requires each DOE laboratory to have an ombudsman and to report quarterly on its operations to DOE. This provision addresses problems that citizens around the country have experienced in getting their issues with DOE weapons laboratories addressed in a timely fashion. Small businesses now will have a place to turn within the laboratories to have their concerns addressed, and there will be quarterly reporting of the progress being made by the ombudsmen to all of the pertinent officials within the Department of Energy.
I urge passage of the bill.
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