Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 09:17:20 -0700 From: owen@DeLong.SJ.CA.US (Owen DeLong) To: nanog@merit.edu, salo@networkcs.com Subject: Re: Director Database Marketing (Herndon VA US) (http://www.saic.com/career/jobs/c5 [...] Under both common law and various federal regulations, NSI has posession of that data because of a federal contract supported and (previously) paid for by taxpayers. As such, at least that much of the data is, by law, in the public domain. ... [...]

Thank you for summarizing one of the great myths about Federal contracting. Your statement is, in general, false. Intellectual property developed under federal contracts is, in general, _not_ public domain. In general, the intellectual property developed under federal contracts is owned by the contractor, although the government has broad rights to the data. See for example: o NSF General Grant Conditions (GC-1) http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf98gc1a/nsf98gc1a.txt Including sections: 17. Information Collection 18. Copyrightable Material 21. Patent Rights o NSF Grant Policy Manual (95-26) Including sections: 730 Intellectual Property 731 Patent and Inventions 731.1 Background 731.2 National Science Foundation Patent Policy 731.3 Standard Patent Rights Clause 732 Copyright 732.1 Rights to Copyrightable Material 732.2 Standard Copyrightable Material Clause 733 Special Patent and Copyright Situations 733.1 Special Grant Provisions 733.2 Grants Not Primarily for Research 733.3 Grants Affected by International Agreements 734 Dissemination and Sharing of Research Results 735 Tangible Property 735.1 Background 735.2 Legal Rights to Tangible Property o Federal Acquisition Regulations http://farsite.hill.af.mil/ Particularly: Part 27 - Patents, Data, and Copyrights The first sentence of the following quote from the FARs may help explain the motivation for this approach. 27.404 Basic Rights in Data Clause. (f) Copyrighted Data.--(1) Data First Produced in the Performance of a Contract. (i) In order to enhance the transfer or dissemination of information produced at Government expense, contractors are normally authorized, without prior approval of the contracting officer, to establish claim to copyright subsisting in technical or scientific articles based on or containing data first produced in the performance of work under a contract containing the clause at 52.227-14, Rights in Data--General and published in academic, technical or professional journals, symposia proceedings and similar works. ... -tjs