In its rush to adopt the socialist industry-investment policies that seemingly have failed around the world, the US government has created many channels for transferring technology out of government sponsored and funded efforts into the private sector. CRADAs, TRPs, SBIRs, DualUse and all the other ways that government agencies like to play being venture capitalists, have at the same time created kind of a mess when it comes to the legal aspects of these intellectual property creation activities. A book has recently been published that is an excellent guide to at least what the various IP laws are when dealing with the government. Hopefully the authors will write a second book on strategies for dealing with these laws. Information on the book: TITLE: Licensing Law Handbook: Federal Government IP Guide AUTHOR: Linda Hopkins and Kenneth Ryesky PUBLISH: Clark Boardman & Callaghan (1-800-323-1336) YEAR: 1994 ISBN: 0-87632-071-X PAGES: 497 COST: $110 and covers IP regulations for the following agencies: General Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Defense Department FAR Supplement NASA Department of Energy General Services Administration Department of Housing and Urban Development Department of the Interior Department of Veteran Affairs Department of Agriculture Department of Commerce Department of Education Department of Health and Human Services Department of Justice Department of Labor Department of State Department of Transportation Tennessee Valley Authority Environmental Protection Agency Small Business Administration AID, FEMA, USIA, NSF Thus it does a pretty good job of covering most government agencies, the only major omission being the National Institutes for Health (NIH) (though I did not read the book in depth [you try reading 400 pages of federal legalese], so I might have missed it). Additionally, while the Patent and Trademark Office is part of the Department of Commerce, I think that it has slightly different IP practices for its employees and contractors, and should be covered in a future edition. One chapter is devoted to each government agency, and usually covers rights to data, copyrights, patents and inventions, computer software, and licensing agreements. Most of each chapter is split between the actual regulations and a brief explanation of what it means. There are plenty of footnotes to court cases and other government regulations. Not surprisingly, the Defense Department chapter is the largest of the book. There is an introductory chapter on government-wide intellecutal property issues, and a final chapter on the rights of federal employees with regards to patents and inventions. Regretably, there is little discussion on the microeconomic aspects of federal intellectual property regulations, and federal technology investment costs and benefits. For example, a few years ago laws were passed to give partial royalties to federal employees to encourage them, but one GAO study showed that this had little effect. I recommend this book for IP law firms, government contractors and university technology transfer offices, as it will help them deal with the government contracting more effectively. For small companies and individuals doing technology work for the government, once you win a decent sized contract for something you want to commercially exploit, it's probably worth buying the book (say at Phase II of an SBIR project). Hats off to the authors of this book, who had to wade through tons of government regulations to prepare the book. If you buy the book, ask the publisher for information on their other IP books - all very good though a tad expensive. Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service (for subscription info, send 'help' to patents@world.std.com ) (for prior art search services info, send 'prior' to patents@world.std.com ) (for WWW patent searching, try http://sunsite.unc.edu/patents/intropat.html )