Manufacturing Demonstration Facility

• MDF
• Projects
• User Program
• Facility Access
• IP Management

Intellectual Property & Proprietary Data

The MDF enables research and development from concept to prototype in an open or secure environment for reducing risks and costs, accelerating innovation, optimizing energy efficiency, protecting intellectual property and maximizing investments.

DOE and ORNL respect the importance of industry’s intellectual property and data security while balancing the need to document the benefits of public expenditures. Provisions relating to proprietary information and intellectual property are addressed in each specific type of partnership agreement. A Non-Disclosure agreement (NDA), if required, can be put into place to facilitate discussions while protecting the partner’s proprietary information.

Several partnership agreement types exist; the type of agreement used depends on the specific needs of the non-federal partner. A non-proprietary user agreement is used for short-term projects and is the most common type of industry partnership agreement anticipated within the MDF. Download a sample agreement.

User agreements include provisions that address the protection of the partners’ existing proprietary information and intellectual property, as well as the information and intellectual property generated and made during the collaboration. More specifically, each party owns its own inventions while jointly developed inventions will be jointly owned. In all cases, U.S. Government will retain government use rights. Proprietary data used in performing the work may be protected for a period of up to three years. Information generated as a result of the collaboration will be made publicly available.