§7261a — Title 42 The Public Health and Welfare | U.S. Code

Summary

The Secretary of Energy can give a contractor the ownership of an invention made under certain DOE defense contracts if the contractor asks for that transfer. The Secretary must decide within 150 days after getting a complete request. A complete request must include the information and format the Secretary requires. If the Secretary does not decide in 150 days, the Secretary must send a report explaining why to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees within 10 days, and then send another report every 30 days until a decision is made. When deciding, the Secretary must think about four things: whether national security would be harmed; whether sensitive technical information (classified or unclassified) that is controlled by federal rules would be released to people who should not get it; whether the transfer would create a conflict of interest for the contractor’s organization; and whether not keeping the government’s claim would hurt the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, the nuclear weapons programs, or other DOE atomic defense activities.

Title 42, §7261a

The Public Health and Welfare — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)(1)Whenever any contractor makes an invention or discovery to which the title vests in the Department of Energy pursuant to exercise of section 202(a)(ii) or (iv) of title 35, or pursuant to section 2182 of this title or section 5908 of this title in the course of or under any Government contract or subcontract of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program or the nuclear weapons programs or other atomic energy defense activities of the Department of Energy and the contractor requests waiver of any or all of the Government’s property rights, the Secretary of Energy may decide to waive the Government’s rights and assign the rights in such invention or discovery.

(2)Such decision shall be made within 150 days after the date on which a complete request for waiver of such rights has been submitted to the Secretary by the contractor. For purposes of this paragraph, a complete request includes such information, in such detail and form, as the Secretary by regulation prescribes as necessary to allow the Secretary to take into consideration the matters described in subsection (b) in making the decision.

(3)If the Secretary fails to make the decision within such 150-day period, the Secretary shall submit to the Committees on Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate, within 10 days after the end of the 150-day period, a report on the reasons for such failure. The submission of such report shall not relieve the Secretary of the requirement to make the decision under this section. The Secretary shall, at the end of each 30-day period after submission of the first report during which the Secretary continues to fail to make the decision required by this section, submit another report on the reasons for such failure to the committees listed in this paragraph.

(b)In making a decision under this section, the Secretary shall consider, in addition to the applicable policies of section 2182 of this title or subsections (c) and (d) of section 5908 of this title—

(1)whether national security will be compromised;

(2)whether sensitive technical information (whether classified or unclassified) under the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program or the nuclear weapons programs or other atomic energy defense activities of the Department of Energy for which dissemination is controlled under Federal statutes and regulations will be released to unauthorized persons;

(3)whether an organizational conflict of interest contemplated by Federal statutes and regulations will result; and

(4)whether failure to assert such a claim will adversely affect the operation of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program or the nuclear weapons programs or other atomic energy defense activities of the Department of Energy.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification Section was enacted as part of the Department of Energy National Security and Military Applications of Nuclear Energy Authorization Act of 1987 and also as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987, and not as part of the Department of Energy Organization Act which comprises this chapter.

Amendments

1987—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 100–180 designated existing provisions as par. (1), struck out at end “Such decision shall be made within a reasonable time (which shall usually be six months from the date of the request by the contractor for assignment of such rights).”, and added pars. (2) and (3).

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

of 1987 Amendment Pub. L. 100–180, div. C, title I, § 3135(b), Dec. 4, 1987, 101 Stat. 1241, provided that: “Paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 3131(a) of the Department of Energy National Security and Military Applications of Nuclear Energy Authorization Act of 1987 [subsec. (a)(2), (3) of this section] (as added by subsection (a)) shall apply with respect to waiver requests submitted by contractors under that section after March 1, 1988.”

§7261a Protection of sensitive technical information