§2182 Inventions conceived during Commission contracts; ownership; waiver; hearings

Summary

Any invention or discovery that helps make or use special nuclear material or atomic energy and that is made or thought up while working under a contract, subcontract, or arrangement for the Commission belongs to the Commission. It does not matter whether the Commission paid money under the contract. The Commission can choose to give up its claim to an invention if it thinks that is right. A person applying for a patent on such an invention must file a sworn statement with the patent application, or within 30 days if asked by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, saying how and when the invention was made and whether it was made under a contract for the Commission. If the Commission already decided its rights, it can tell the Patent Office that no statement is needed. When the application is ready for allowance, the Patent Office sends the application and the statement to the Commission. The Patent Office can issue the patent to the applicant unless the Commission, within 90 days after getting the papers, orders the Patent Office to issue the patent to the Commission instead. If the Commission does that and the applicant still insists the invention was not made under a Commission contract, the applicant has 30 days to ask the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for a hearing. The Board will decide under its usual rules, and either side can appeal the Board’s final decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. If the applicant made false material statements or hid important facts, the Commission can still claim the patent later, even if it earlier said it had no objection. A rights decision the Commission made before the Patent Office asked for the statement is final unless the applicant lied or failed to disclose important facts.