The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has just released its brand new iEdison system, which will be used to report inventions that have been funded by the federal government.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Department of Commerce has redesigned the online platform where organisations report their taxpayer-funded inventions to help move technology from the lab to the market. The new Interagency Edison system, or iEdison, has a modernised user interface and new functionality and security features that will make it easier for government grantees and contractors to meet the reporting requirements of the Bayh-Dole Act.
Each year, the U.S. government spends more than $150 billion on grants and funding agreements to help universities and other non-federal organisations do research and development. In 2021 alone, more than 8,500 new ideas and 21,000 new patents were added to iEdison.
Mojdeh Bahar, NIST’s associate director for innovation and industry services, said, “The inventions listed in iEdison create a lot of economic value for the country, help create jobs, and make our lives better.” “The new improvements to the iEdison system will make it easier for inventors, awardees, and the government to keep track of these investments in a clear and efficient way.”
The Bayh-Dole Act says that people who get money from the government must tell the government about any inventions that come from that money. In addition to reporting their inventions, organisations can use iEdison to ask for extensions and waivers, report their progress, and let the government know about the limited use rights it has to patents on inventions that were paid for by taxpayer money.
The new version of iEdison has a more modern user interface and new messaging features that make it easier for organisations to talk to the agencies that give them money. It also has an improved application programming interface, or API, which will let organisations automate some reporting tasks. The new system is also connected to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s information systems, which makes it easier to update patent information.
“These upgrades will make it easier for recipients to meet their reporting requirements and for federal agencies to protect the public’s investment in research and development,” said Bethany Loftin, NIST’s project leader for the iEdison system and an interagency and iEdison specialist in the Technology Partnerships Office at NIST.
In 2016, the U.S. National Academies said that the National Institutes of Health, which made iEdison in 1995, should hand over responsibility for it to the Department of Commerce. NIST was chosen to do the upgrade and host the system because of its work to improve innovation in the U.S. NIST co-chairs the Lab-to-Market subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council and has the power to make Bayh-Dole rules, among other things.
In December 2019, NIST began to work on the update. The old NIH system shut down on August 2, 2022, and the new system, which was hosted by NIST, went live on August 9.
