Cooperative Agreements, OTAs, Grants

The government encourages technology transfers between the private and federal sectors. This is done mainly through Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA), and NASA's and the Department of Defense's (DOD) "other transactions," which permit access by private companies to government technology, inventions, expertise, and facilities (principally federal laboratories). The rights, obligations, and remedies under these agreements are very different from those commercial or traditional government contracts. Moreover, there is no uniform set of regulations that apply to CRADAs or other transactions. Instead, there are a wide variety of "model" agreements, which follow in varying degrees the broad statutory authority for these transactions.