DOE has new requirement for domestic manufacturing of its licensed technologies
The State Science and Technology Institute reports in its latest SSTI Weekly Digest on a significant expansion of a requirement that up to now has been applied only to exclusive licenses. Here’s the note that SSTI published on Thursday:
Technologies that are developed from the Department of Energy’s R&D are now required to be substantially manufactured in America. The requirement was developed in response to President Joe Biden’s executive order that all agencies review their policies related to supply chain vulnerabilities. The rule change takes the domestic manufacturing preference that is in place currently only for exclusive licenses for products sold/used in the U.S. and applies it by default to all Energy licenses from Oct. 1 on.
The agency has a waiver process in place for technologies that cannot be produced domestically. DOE has published a detailed explanation of the rule, including a frequently asked questions guide and references to authorizing authorities. The American Institute of Physics has published an article citing concerns from several technology transfer associations that believe the rule change will make licensing the agency’s intellectual property more difficult.
