The Potential Threat of March-In Rights to Entrepreneurial Separation to Transfer Technology Programs

In this paper, we present the application of Entrepreneurial Separation to Transfer Technologies from federally funded research and the difficulties associated with the transfer of intellectual property. With the increased threat (call) by the government to exercise “march-in” rights, which could limit both the licensing terms and what firms charge for goods (e.g., prescription drugs) that come from intellectual property (IP) resulting from federally funded research, researchers may be disinclined to commercialize their IP. While the government wants to exercise its March-In Rights to help consumers, it may be unintentionally harming them. The government is increasingly more vocal about the threat of march-in rights, in part because of the high consumer prices that have resulted from pandemic-related inflationary pressures. This threat has the potential of rolling back 40 years of gains from the Bayh–Dole Act. We present an overview of Entrepreneurial Separation to Transfer Technology and Entrepreneurial Leave Agreements and how they serve as one tool to support the transfer of early-stage technology. In a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous environment, university and federal laboratories need all the tools available to facilitate innovation and its commercialization. We present here why the development of these programs can help support their activities.