NASA provides industry the opportunity to stimulate business investment in the development of new markets on Earth, and to support NASA’s mission and objectives.

Businesses can work with NASA in a variety of ways, depending on the nature of the business, the size of a firm or a particular contract type.

One of the ways NASA works with the private sector is via license agreements.

NASA owns over a thousand patents and patent applications that protect inventions in hundreds of subject matter categories. NASA makes these inventions available to industry through its Patent Licensing Program, which is administered by NASA’s field centers on behalf of the NASA Office of General Counsel, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

All NASA licenses are individually negotiated with the prospective licensee, and each license contains terms concerning commercialization (practical application), license duration, royalties and periodic reporting. NASA patent licenses may be exclusive, partially exclusive, or nonexclusive. An Exclusive License is a legal document granting intellectual property rights to another party for their sole use in a given field of use or geographic area. A Nonexclusive License is a legal document granting intellectual property rights to an unlimited number of parties in a given field of use or geographic area. A Partially Exclusive License is a legal document granting intellectual property rights to a pre-determined number of recipients (more than one) for a specific field of use or geographic area. This is also referred to as a Field of Use license.

The patent licensing process generally takes about three to four months after receipt of application for a nonexclusive license. Exclusive licenses take longer and are highly dependent on the complexity of the application. The time frame for exclusive licenses includes a mandatory waiting period of 60 days, during which time a member of the public can file a written objection. Up-front fees generally are set according to the value of the technology and are negotiable.

The percentage in royalties to be paid to NASA under a licensing agreement is negotiable depending on a number of factors, including the type of license issued. It is likely to be between two percent and eight percent of sales.

Information on NASA patents and patent applications is available from:

• Patent and technical literature searches
• NASA Tech Briefs
• Regional Technology Transfer Centers
• The National Technology Transfer Center
• NASA Field Center Technology Transfer/Commercialization Offices
• NASA Field Center Office of Patent Counsel
• NASA Headquarters Office of General Counsel
• NASA TechFinder

For more information about licensing NASA technologies and to access opportunities for technology transfer, visit http://www.ipp.nasa.gov.

Please mention that you read about it in Technology Innovation.

NASA Official: Jonathan Root • Web Design: Printing & Design Office, NASA Headquarters • Credits