Pentagon announces ‘patent holiday’ to encourage productization
The U.S. Defense Department on Thursday kicked off what it said was its first-ever patent holiday, a pilot effort that will offer industry no-fee commercial evaluation licenses for a curated group of about 400 patents owned by the government.
“We spend just under $4 billion annually funding [military] labs, and they produce an incredible amount of stuff,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said during an industry day in Washington, D.C. “What we’re trying to do today is make sure that that money is spent wisely on the invention, and then we ask commercial industry to take that money and those inventions and bring them forward. And you make a business out of it.”
Michael said during a media roundtable after his remarks that the Pentagon identified about 400 patents it sees as most interesting and relevant. For those, industry will see a two-year patent holiday, royalty-free.
He stressed that the department is seeking to highlight that these patents exist by providing a searchable database, and also to remove any financial obstacles.
“I’m trying to create the most incentive possible for the first movers to take advantage of this new program and removing as many barriers as I can,” Michael told reporters, adding that the government has previously collected only small amounts of revenue on the patents.
Michael said he hopes to attract a mix of companies, small and large, to the initiative. “I like the idea of the smaller businesses where this fee waiver and this royalty waiver is likely to make a bigger difference,” he said. “I believe it’ll also impact the larger players, and you could imagine a scenario where the smaller players take this forward and then maybe partner with a bigger player for scale production.”
He added that the department hopes to learn from the effort.
“This is a pilot program that will evolve,” Michael said. “Without figuring out what the next 20 years looks like, we’re going to figure out what the next year or two look like, and then we’ll go from there.”
