[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 44 (Monday, November 6, 2000)]
[Pages 2718-2719]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Signing the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act of 
2000

November 1, 2000

    Today I signed into law H.R. 209, the ``Technology Transfer 
Commercialization Act of 2000.''
    In 1986, the Congress passed the Federal Technology Transfer Act 
(FTTA). That Act built upon the basic premise of the earlier Stevenson-
Wydler Technology Innovation Act and the Bayh-Dole Act, namely, that 
Federal laboratories create technologies that businesses may desire to 
develop commercially as a source of competitive advantage. The FTTA 
established new partnering policies for Government laboratories in the 
earliest stages of research through mechanisms such as the Cooperative 
Research and Development Agreements (CRADA). Since that time, American 
taxpayers have seen how Government-owned innovations can be brought into 
the marketplace to create consumer products, thereby improving our 
quality of life and enhancing our international competitiveness.
    The Act will help ensure that the benefits of Federal research 
translate into new products and opportunities for the American public. 
It simplifies the process of licensing Government-owned inventions to 
the private sector by allowing the licensing of preexisting inventions 
that arise under CRADAs so that the private sector partner has access to 
the relevant technology. The Act also authorizes Federal agencies to 
acquire rights in related privately owned inventions, so as to create a 
more effective portfolio for licensing.
    The Act will remove procedural obstacles to technology transfer and 
directs agencies

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to consider the increasingly international environment of innovation. It 
recognizes that, in many cases, the necessary period for notice by a 
Federal agency of its intent to grant exclusive licenses can be 
shortened using both traditional and electronic means for providing the 
notice. In making decisions about appropriate notice periods, Federal 
agencies must continue to balance the need for promptness against the 
fundamental statutory purpose of ensuring that these inventions are used 
in a way that benefits the public. I expect that individual agencies 
will use their discretion responsibly in setting the period for comment 
on proposed exclusive licenses and will bear in mind that the 15-day 
period provided in this Act is a minimum requirement that may not be 
appropriate in all situations.
    I fully support the effort, under the policy leadership of the 
Department of Commerce, to improve the transfer of valuable technology 
from Federal laboratories to the private sector.
                                            William J. Clinton
 The White House,
 November 1, 2000.

Note: H.R. 209, approved November 1, was assigned Public Law No. 106-
404.