You can patent an invention made under an SBIR or STTR award, and you should if it is worth patenting. What changes is not the patentability analysis but the timing, the funding, and the strings attached to the resulting patent. Three federal constraints sit on top of the ordinary process, and each one has caught founders out.
Timing against publication and reporting
Federal awards push you toward disclosure. Progress reports get written, conference abstracts get submitted, program reviews get presented, and academic partners on an STTR have their own reasons to publish. Any of those can be a public disclosure that starts clocks running and, in most countries outside the United States, destroys patentability outright. The rule of thumb is simple: file before you talk. At minimum get a filing on record ahead of the first external presentation, and read up on how public disclosure and the one-year grace period actually work before you rely on the grace period, because it is a US-only cushion. Coordinate the filing with your invention reporting: the agency disclosure and election deadlines run on their own schedule, and a filing decision made without reference to them is a filing decision made blind. For the general question of when in a development program to file, the ordinary tradeoffs still apply.
Who pays for it
Usually you do, out of your own pocket. The costs of preparing the invention disclosures and reports the award requires are generally allowable, but the cost of preparing, filing and prosecuting a patent application that the award does not require is commonly treated as unallowable as a direct charge on a federal award. Treatment can differ depending on the agency, the instrument, and how your indirect cost structure is set up, so this is a question for your accountant and your contracting officer rather than for a website. Budgeting patent work as a direct line item and having it disallowed later is a classic version of the budget mistakes that cause trouble — plan for the filing to come off your own balance sheet and be pleasantly surprised if it does not.
The license that attaches, and the notice in the patent
A patent on federally funded work is a patent with a passenger. The government holds a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice the invention for or on behalf of the United States, permanently. The patent itself must carry a statement identifying the federal support and the agency, which means anyone reading it can see the invention was federally funded. Neither fact prevents you from selling, licensing or enforcing the patent, and buyers of federally funded patents deal with this routinely — but a licensee will price it, and diligence will ask about it, so disclose it early. The broader ownership framework for federally funded IP covers how title and license fit together, and the patents section covers the filing mechanics themselves.
This is general information, not legal advice, and nothing here is tax or accounting advice. Filing decisions on federally funded inventions belong with counsel experienced in federal contracting, and cost allowability with your CPA.
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