The Small Business Technology Council and the National Small Business Association submitted its public comment on SBA’s proposed amendments to the SBIR/STTR Policy Directive on July 6. The comment period is now closed, but follow the link below to view the proposed amendments, and all the public comments that were made:
SBA SBIR/STTR Policy Directive Amendments Docket
The amendments proposed by the SBA were very technical and incredibly broad in the scope of issues and changes that were covered. We relied on a team of members to draft this comment, and we certainly wouldn’t have been able to put it together without their help and expertise, so thank you to all the Policy Directive Committee members for their work and time on this.
Among some of the biggest issues covered in our comment were:
- A proposed limit to SBIR/STTR data rights protection period to 12 years. We feel that this period too short, and it should remain unchanged as it is now, or if limited to a specific time period, at least 20 years, the same protection period granted to patents.
- There should be a clear statement that there is no retroactivity to any changes to data rights provisions.
- SBTC objects to the use of the phrase “essentially equivilant work”, as it is too vague and could cover work that appears to be similar, but is different in small but important ways. We believe the language should be tightened to ensure that prohibitions only apply to companies being paid twice for the “same” or “identical” work.
- Both the FAR and the DFAR should be updated ASAP to reflect the current changes in the SBIR/STTR law.
These are just a handful of the dozens of issues and provisions in SBA’s Policy Directive Amendments that SBTC’s comment touches on. Please click on the link below to read our entire comment:
SBTC/NSBA Comments to 2016 SBIR/STTR Policy Directive Amendments