10 U.S.C. § 4832 — Encouragement of technology transfer

(a) Encouragement of Transfer Required . — The Secretary of Defense must encourage, to the extent consistent with national security objectives, the transfer of technology between laboratories and research centers of the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies, State and local governments, colleges and universities, and private persons in cases that are likely to result in accomplishing the objectives set forth in section 4811(a) of this title . (b) Examination and Implementation of Methods To Encourage Transfer . — The Secretary must examine and implement methods, in addition to the encouragement described in subsection (a) and the program described in subsection (c), that are consistent with national security objectives and will enable Department of Defense personnel to promote technology transfer. (c) Program To Encourage Diversification of Defense Laboratories . — (1) The Secretary of Defense must establish and implement a program to be known as the Federal Defense Laboratory Diversification Program (hereinafter in this subsection referred to as the “Program”). The purpose of the Program must be to encourage greater cooperation in research and production activities carried out by defense laboratories and by private industry of the United States to enhance and improve the products of that research and production activities. (2) Under the Program, the defense laboratories, in coordination with the Office of Technology Transfer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, must carry out cooperative activities with private industry to promote (by the use or exchange of patents, licenses, cooperative research and development agreements and other cooperative agreements, and the use of symposia, meetings, and other similar mechanisms) the transfer of defense or dual-use technologies from the defense laboratories to private industry, and the development and application of that technologies by the defense laboratories and private industry, to the commercial utilization of that technologies by private industry. (3) The Secretary of Defense must develop and annually update a plan for each defense laboratory that participates in the Program under which plan the laboratory must carry out cooperative activities with private industry to promote the transfers described in subsection (b). (4) In this subsection, the term “defense laboratory” means any laboratory owned or operated by the Department of Defense that carries out research in fiscal year 1993 in an amount more than $50,000,000.