Incentives for Inventors

Federal Agencies can provide a number of incentives to encourage their researchers to participate in the invention and commercialization process. These vary from agency to agency, and are currently being evaluated to determine agency best practices.

NIST provides incentives to inventors by:

-- giving recognition to issued patents to NIST management,

-- awarding the inventors a customized plaque with the issuance of a patent,

-- offering a financial incentive via the first $2000 of received royalties from each licensee under a patent license, and then 30% of the remaining royalty income from each licensee (higher than the mandatory standard of 15% set out in the Federal Technology Transfer Act), and

-- encouraging laboratory awards and recognition, and allocation of remaining royalty incomes to the inventor's group for furthering the research objectives of the inventors