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| KEI asks DOD to investigate failure to disclose DARPA funding in Moderna patents |
| 2020-08-31 |
| [KEIonline] Luis Gil Abinader has taken a deep dive into Moderna’s [stock ticker MRNA] surprising practice of never declaring government funding in its 126 patents and 154 patent applications, despite having had funding from multiple federal agencies. One outcome of his research is a 25 page report (RN-2020-3) on Moderna’s failure to report funding from DARPA, and a request by KEI to DOD and DARPA to remedy this, including by taking title to patents where disclosures should have been made. (Text of letter below, and PDF version here). KEI will also send a letter to BARDA. The letter below was addressed to DOD and DARPA, and focuses on their funding. CONTEXT The obligation to disclose federal funding in patent applications has been subject to presidential executive orders, statutes, regulations and contracts, including those cited and quoted in Abinader’s report. The disclosure clarifies the public’s rights in the inventions and the obligations on the entity getting the money, on everything from the government’s worldwide royalty free license to the public’s march-in rights, obligations to make inventions available to the public on reasonable terms, and additional safeguards that can be exercised by a government inclined to do so. Secondly, the disclosure changes the narrative about who has financed the inventive activity, often the most risky part of development. One of the earlier norms on this was Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9424, on the Establishment of a Register of Government interests in patents. In 2018, the regulations on disclosure were modified by NIST (see 83 FR 15954), where, among other things, the government gave itself unlimited time to remedy a failure to disclose federal funding, to eliminate one loophole that created an incentive ignore the disclosure requirement. In the past, the US Department of Defense has taken title to patents where federal funding was not disclosed. See: Campbell Plastics v. Brownlee, 389 F.3d 1243 (Fed. Cir. 2004). There is more on the broader issue of disclosure of government funding in patents here: https://www.keionline.org/bayh-dole/failure-to-disclose The research on the Moderna/DARPA funding is outlined in a 25 page August 27, 2020 report by Luis Gil Abinader, titled: "Moderna failures to disclose DARPA funding in patented inventions." RN-2020-3 Below is the text of the KEI letter to Dr. Mark T. Esper, Secretary of Defense, and Dr. Amy Jenkins, of the Pandemic Prevention Platform for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), regarding the apparent failure by Moderna to disclose DARPA funding in patent applications.... Related: Zerohedge take |
| Posted by:Clem |