Jay Rockefeller: “Today I am with my colleague Senate Frist introducing the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act of 1999. This bill…”

“Today I am with my colleague Senate Frist introducing the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act of 1999. This bill would make technical changes and clarifications to the legislation which governs the transfer of intellectual property from the federal government to the private sector. The original Technology Transfer Improvements Act (TTIA), which I was author of in 1995, allowed for easier and quicker access to intellectual property which the government owns and private industry wants. It created a win-win situation. The government gets royalties from these licenses, private industry gets the intellectual property that it needs, and Americans get jobs from the production of inventions based on this intellectual property. This bill builds on the strong positive response from TTIA. It reduces the requirements for obtaining a non-exclusive license in order to allow as many companies and individuals as possible access to the information. It also addresses private industry's concerns about maintaining confidential information within applications. However, this does not come at the expense of the government being able to keep control of its property.”