US Govt Licensing (was licensing)

>  "Jan C. Depner" <[email protected]> Said:
> The US government cannot copyright anything - go check the US 
> Copyright
> Office pages.  It's one line.  I also had to check this with 
> our lawyer
> (DOD - I am not a contractor).  I really love this bit of 
> hand waving by
> NIMA in the DTED spec:
> 
> 	COPYRIGHT (year of production) BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
> 	NO COPYRIGHT CLAIMED UNDER TITLE 17 U.S.C.
> 
> 
> Since we can't copyright we can't license under the GPL.  All software
> published by the US government falls into the public domain.  Note the
> use of the word "published".  Export controlled software is not
> "published".  It is against the law for a company to charge the US
> government for code that was developed by the US government.  They can
> charge for enhancements/extensions but not for the code itself.  Other
> governments have different rules but this is what we have to 
> deal with.

Yes, the trick is "developed by the US government"  If they buy it from a contractor, that little bit about "US government restricted rights" in the boilerplate Kicks in.

>  The US 
> government can
> patent software (what a revolting thought).  I know because 
> our echelon
> 2 command wanted me to patent some software that I was working on in
> conjunction with two CRADAs.  It must look good on their permanent
> record or something ;-) 

Actually This was explained to me by someone from the US Census bureau one time (The US "leased" the technology to the Canadian Government for the 76 census, and the Commerce labs in Suitland MD sent up a couple of techs to keep the machines, which had already done the 1970 US census at a datacenter in Indianapolis running.)

The US apparently will use patents as a pre-emptive strike.  If the Government patents something, no one else can. 

In effect a patent granted to the US government is really an Anti-Patent, as least as far as US firms are concerned. A Canadian Company would of course have to licence the patent to sell in the states, (except to the Gov)  and presumably a US firm would get preference in applying for a licence.

They will normally licence a US company under favourable terms if it is something of commercial potential.  The argument is that if they did'ent apply for a patent, someone from the private sector could and then charge the government for the use of the "IP"  Getting patents is of course always a good career move if one is employed as a Government inventor.

(Apparently the computer input microfilm idea that the Census was using did not have commercial application, although I did get hired to microfilm for a few months with the "1980" camera in 1987 - that camera was microprocessor controlled, the 1970 camera, was relay controlled.  Both had 10 Horsepower worth of electric motors in a machine that was 10ft by 10 ft.