Center for Government Contracting in the George Mason University School of Business announced on Monday that the center has received a $671,000 contract from the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)).
Under the DOD contract, GMU’s Center for Government Contracting will review the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and defense laboratories’ contracting and intellectual property management policies as well as their effects on the commercialization of dual-use technology.
“We are thrilled to have been selected for this important study on intellectual property practices for DoD and we very much look forward to working with our colleagues across the University on this effort,” said GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting and 2021 Wash100 Award recipient.
The Laboratories and Personnel Office in the OUSD(R&E) is the sponsor for this study, which was required under the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.
Back in August, GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn advocated that the Department of Defense should continue its focus on intellectual property and security and address challenges related to those two factors to safeguard and further advance innovation.
“In the case of security, if a program is being conducted in robotics, you’ve got government personnel, university personnel and industry personnel working on it and the proprietary information is compromised by a cyberattack or some kind of espionage and that will end up … reducing the military advantage for the United States,” McGinn added.