Late disclosures of federal funding in US patents.

Abstract

Enacted primarily to encourage patents on federally funded inventions, an additional policy objective of the Bayh-Dole Act is to increase visibility around scientific discoveries made with US government support. The Bayh-Dole Act requires federal grantees to disclose subject inventions to funding agencies and declare government support in their patents. Prior research has shown, however, that hundreds of grantees have failed to declare federal funding in biomedical patents, and others have acknowledged government support several years late through certificates of corrections. Combining data from the National Institutes of Health and the Patent and Trademark Office, this study explores the extent to which grantees have declared government support late through certificates of corrections and likely reasons why this occurred. Over 3000 patents covering federally funded inventions have been corrected to acknowledge government support late, most in recent years. Many of these corrections appear to have been driven by high-profile controversies, changes in the Bayh-Dole regulations, and civil society advocacy. These findings call for policies to encourage timely compliance with invention reporting requirements and to increase the visibility of late acknowledgements of US government funding.