Data Rights

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Contractors interested in offering federal agencies artificial intelligence (AI) can now glean insight into how agencies are expected to conduct AI acquisitions. On September 24, 2024, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued Memorandum M-24-18, Advancing the Responsible Acquisition of Artificial Intelligence in Government (the Memorandum), providing guidance and directing agencies “to improve their capacity for the responsible acquisition of AI” systems or services, including subcomponents. The Memorandum builds on the White House’s Executive Order 14110, Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, and OMB Memorandum M-24-10, Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence. Taking effect on March 23, 2025, M-24-18 will apply to all solicitations and contract option exercises for AI systems covered under the Memorandum.Continue Reading OMB Issues Guidance to Agencies on Responsible Artificial Intelligence Acquisitions

The Interagency Edison (“iEdison”) system is the principal mechanism for preserving rights to title in Government-funded inventions. Its use is now mandatory per 37 CFR 401.16, and we expect FAR 52.227-11, Patent Rights – Ownership by the Contractor, to see parallel amendments soon. Despite its use by multiple agencies to satisfy the reporting obligations imposed on funding recipients under the Bayh-Dole Act, most agree and recognize that the system is broken…badly broken.
Continue Reading iEdison’s 2020 New Year’s Resolution – Improvement! Time to Submit Your Comments

This article focuses on contractor licenses that grant “Restricted Rights” in “Noncommercial Software” to the federal Government under Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) 252.227-7014.  DFARS 252.227-7014 only applies to “Noncommercial Computer Software,” meaning software that is licensed to or developed for the Government, but that is not also licensed to the public.  In contrast to the commercial world, where software licensors generally set the terms under which they wish to license their products, DFARS 252.227-7014 dictates such terms, and codifies required license grants for software developed for the U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”).  Under DFARS 252.227-7014, even if a licensor develops Noncommercial Software at private expense, the licensor must at least grant Restricted Rights to the Government — although title and ownership of the software always remain with the contractor licensor.
Continue Reading Restricted Rights Under DFARS 252.227-7014: Practitioner Advice for Avoiding DoD Licensing Pitfalls

On August 8, 2016, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) promulgated an Open Source Software (“OSS”) policy via the Memorandum for the Heads of Departments and Agencies, M-16-21 (“Memorandum” or “M-16-21”). The high-level purposes of the Memorandum are to promote reuse of federal contractor and employee custom-developed code, and to improve the quality of such software through public participation. To these ends, the Memorandum has two major directives: (1) all custom-developed code must be broadly available for reuse across the federal government subject to limited exceptions (e.g., for national security and defense) and (2) under a three-year pilot program, federal agencies are required to release at least 20% of their custom-developed code to the public as OSS. The intent here is to enable continual quality improvements to the code as a result of broader public community efforts. As discussed below, the requirement to release custom-developed code as OSS may effectively reduce the creator’s ownership rights, and have economic impacts on both the value of ownership and pricing when bidding on government contracts.
Continue Reading U.S. Government Open Source Software: OMB’s Memorandum on Federal Source Code Policy Exposes IP Ownership Risk