The IPL newsletter: Volume 20, Issue 409

Standards for the Digital Economy: Creating an Architecture for Data Collection, Access and Analytics

Michel Girard, CIGI
This report lays out a standards framework geared towards better positioning Canada to benefit from the ‘new data value chains’ made possible by digitization. The author explores the potential for data standards to “clarify the roles and responsibilities of participants in data value chains regarding data collection and grading, data access and sharing, as well as data analytics and solutions.”  This would allow existing supply chains to improve data sharing and interoperability within a framework that sets appropriate benchmarks regarding data governance.

Manufacturing USA Annual Report: Delivering Value for the Nation

Manufacturing USA
This 2018 annual report summarizes the technology and workforce development initiatives underway at the 14 Manufacturing USA institutes. Founded in 2014 with support from the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy, the organization’s institutes are “public-private partnerships which assist American manufacturing enterprises in developing new products and new production technologies.” The report highlights the institutes’ various commercialization and workforce development benchmarks, including leveraging $183 million in federal funds to attract $304 million in state and private investment, providing workforce development programs to 200 000 workers, enlisting 1937 member organizations, and conducting 475 collaborative R&D projects.

Cross-country evidence on the contributions of research institutions to innovation

Caroline Paunovⁱ, Martin Borowieckiⁱ & Nevine El-Mallakh, OECD
This paper presents preliminary evidence on the patenting activities of 21 200 research institutions – 20 091 higher education institutions (HEIs) and 1 109 public research institutes (PRIs) – for 36 OECD countries and China from 1992 to 2014.  The report finds that patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO) filed by research institutions grew faster than applications for industry patents, while patents jointly filed by industry and research institutions grew even faster. However, research institutions’ share in patent applications remains low and their ratio of patents granted to applications is below that of industry. An econometric analysis at postal code level shows that geographical proximity to research institutions is associated with higher industry patenting. The report also finds that research institutions positively influence local industry patenting, including in life sciences and digital technologies.

A Vision for a Sustainable Battery Value Chain in 2030

World Economic Forum
This report envisions the path to achieving “a circular, responsible and just battery value chain.”  The authors describe the need for a sustainable battery value chain as “one of the major near-term drivers to realize the 2C Paris Agreement goal in the transport and power sectors, setting course towards achieving the 1.5C goal if complemented with other technologies and collaborative efforts.”

How Tech Criticism Will Shape Our Digital Future

Daniel Munro, Innovation Policy Lab
In this CIGI article, Innovation Policy Lab Senior Fellow Daniel Munro explores various motives and goals of technology criticism in an effort to “think [more] carefully about what exactly we are doing when we criticize technology and tech firms.”  The article stresses that tech criticism needs to be more inclusive and aware of “what motivates our concerns, who is most at risk and where certain lines of criticism might lead.”

Return on Investment Initiative: Final Green Paper

National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)
This paper is a result of NIST’s joint initiative through the President’s Management Agenda with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) called Return on Investment Initiative for Unleashing American Innovation. The initiative is also part of the OSTP’s Lab-to-Market Cross Agency Priority (CAP) goal, which aims to dramatically increase returns from the more than $150 billion per year of U.S. federal investment in research and development (R&D). The initiative’s objectives to realize this vision are efforts to “assess, streamline, and accelerate the transfer of technology from Lab-to-Market.”

Input for the report included consultation with several hundred experts from companies, universities, institutions and federal interagency working groups at forums held across the nation and organized by NIST and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The stakeholders recommended to NIST the following 5 strategy actions for enhancing how federally funded inventions move from the laboratory to the marketplace:

Strategy 1: Identify regulatory impediments and administrative improvements in Federal technology transfer policies and practices

• Government Use License: The scope of the “government use license” is not well-defined
• March-In Rights: The circumstances under which the government may appropriately exercise march-in rights to license further development of an invention to achieve practical application are not clear
• Preference for U.S. Manufacturing: Existing statute supports the preference for U.S. manufacturing but the process to obtain a waiver is confusing
• Copyright of Software:  The “Government Works” exception to copyright protection for software products of Federal R&D at Government-Owned, Government-Operated Laboratories constrains commercialization
• Proprietary Information: An expanded protection period for proprietary information under a Cooperative R&D Agreement would encourage greater collaboration with Federal Laboratories
• Strengthen Technology Transfer at Federal Laboratories: Updates to policies and practices under the Stevenson-Wydler Act could be simplified
• Presumption of Government Rights to Employee Inventions: The process to determine a present assignment of invention rights by Federal employees to the Federal Government is overly burdensome

Strategy 2: Increase engagement with private sector technology development experts and investors

• Streamlined Partnership Mechanisms: Improved clarity and use of best practices government-wide would streamline agreements and ensure greater transparency for R&D partners
• Expanded Partnership Mechanisms: Private sector investment for translational R&D and technology maturation could be increased through expanded partnership agreements and nonprofit foundations
• Technology Commercialization Incentives: Recipients of Federal funding could benefit from a limited use of R&D funding awards to enable intellectual property protection

Strategy 3: Build a more entrepreneurial R&D workforce

• Technology Entrepreneurship Programs: Expanding technology entrepreneurship programs at Federal R&D agencies government-wide will help build a more entrepreneurial workforce
• Managing Conflicts of Interest: Current requirements for managing conflicts of interest pose challenges to build a more entrepreneurial R&D workforce

Strategy 4: Support innovative tools and services for technology transfer

• Federal IP Data Reporting System(s): A secure, modern platform is not available for reporting data on intellectual property resulting from Federal R&D
• Access to Federal Technologies, Knowledge, and Capabilities: A federated data portal is not available to easily access, use, and analyze information on federally funded technologies, knowledge, and capabilities that are available to the public

Strategy 5: Improve understanding of global science and technology trends and benchmarks

• Benchmarking and Metrics: Current metrics to capture, assess, and improve broad technology transfer outcomes and impacts based on federally funded R&D and underpinning operational processes are inadequate