Special initial awards—NASA and NASA contractor employees.
14 C.F.R. § 1240.105
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) Patent Application Awards. (1) When the Board receives written notice, in the manner prescribed by the Board, from the Agency Counsel for Intellectual Property or the Patent or Intellectual Property Counsel at a NASA Center that an invention made by an employee of NASA or a NASA contractor and reported to NASA in the manner prescribed by the Board is eligible for a patent application award, the Board may recommend to the Administrator or a designee that an award be made, including a specific recommended amount and distribution thereof for any multiple inventors, so long as the following eligibility conditions have been met:
(i) A nonprovisional U.S. patent application has been filed covering the invention and NASA has either an ownership interest in the invention or an irrevocable, royalty-free, license to practice the invention, or have the invention practiced for or on its behalf, throughout the world, or the invention has been assigned by NASA to a contractor under 35 U.S.C. 202(e); or
(ii) A continuation-in-part or divisional patent has been issued based on a patent application that is eligible for an award under paragraph (a)(1)(i) of this section.
(2) No additional award will be given for a continuation patent application where an award was authorized for the parent application and the parent application will be or has been abandoned. In addition, awards will not be granted for provisional applications under 35 U.S.C. 111(b) or reissue applications under 35 U.S.C. 251.
(b) Software Release Awards. (1) When the Board receives written notice, in the manner prescribed by the procedures of the Board, that a NASA Center has approved the initial (first) release to a qualified user of a software package based on a software innovation made by an employee of NASA or a NASA contractor and reported to NASA in the manner prescribed by the procedures of the Board, the Board may recommend to the Administrator or designee that an award be made, including a specific amount and distribution thereof for any multiple innovators, so long as the following conditions have been met:
(i) NASA has either an ownership interest in the software or an irrevocable, royalty-free, license to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute, perform and display the software, throughout the world for governmental purposes;
(ii) The software is of commercial quality as defined in § 1240.102; and
(iii) The software has been verified to perform the functions claimed in its documentation on the platform for which it was designed without harm to the systems or data contained within.
(2) Software that is the subject of a software release award is not eligible to receive a Tech Brief award based upon the publication of an announcement of availability in “NASA Tech Briefs.”
(3) Software release awards for modifications made to software for which the innovators have already received an initial software release award will be at the discretion of the Administrator or his designee, upon recommendation by the Board.
(c) Tech Briefs Awards. When the Board receives written notice, in the manner and format prescribed by the procedures of the Board, that a NASA Center has approved for publication a NASA Tech Brief based on an innovation made by an employee of NASA or a NASA contractor and reported to NASA in the manner and form prescribed by the procedures of the Board, the Board may recommend to the Administrator or designee that an award be made, including a specific amount and distribution thereof for any multiple innovators.
(d) When a Patent Application Award, a Software Release Award, and a Tech Brief Award have been authorized for the same contribution, the awards will be cumulative.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-14.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026