35 USC 200 states the policy and objectives of the Bayh-Dole framework for inventions arising from federally supported research and development. It is not, by itself, a complete checklist of disclosure deadlines and patent-filing duties. Those obligations come from other statutory provisions, regulations, and the actual funding agreement.
What section 200 seeks to accomplish
The statute emphasizes use of federally supported inventions, participation by small businesses, collaboration with nonprofit research institutions, commercialization, competition, and sufficient government rights. It also seeks to prevent nonuse or unreasonable use and reduce administrative costs. [1]
Those policy goals help explain the system, but a contractor should not cite them as permission to disregard a specific patent-rights clause. The first practical task is to identify a subject invention and the agreement governing it.
Title retention comes with conditions
Section 202 addresses qualifying contractors’ election to retain title, exceptions, and required funding-agreement terms. Those terms cover disclosure, title election, patent protection, and the government’s retained license, among other matters. The legal requirements must be matched to the contractor, agency, invention, and agreement. [2]
For example, an invention developed with several funding sources can require analysis of which agreement supported conception or first actual reduction to practice. Listing a grant number in an internal spreadsheet is not the same as completing the required agency disclosure.
Build an invention-specific compliance record
- Document inventorship, ownership, funding sources, and the invention’s development history.
- Record disclosure, election, patent-filing, and agency-response dates.
- Review required government-interest statements and license instruments.
- Check domestic-manufacturing, assignment, reporting, and nonprofit-specific obligations where applicable.
Use the applicable clause and current agency instructions to calculate deadlines; extensions and patent-bar dates need separate attention. Noncompliance can jeopardize title or other rights, but the consequence depends on the breached provision and process. Bayh-Dole does not mean the government automatically owns every federally connected invention.
If a patent application lapses, reviving an abandoned application addresses a separate USPTO procedure. Defense Department prototype transactions involves another funding context in which the actual agreement and intellectual-property terms are essential. Neither a revival petition nor a new agreement automatically cures an earlier Bayh-Dole reporting failure.
Primary sources
Sources checked: October 31, 2026.