Mr. VALENTINE. Thank you, sir.

Dr. Schmid, what changes have you observed in technology transfer efforts since our-since last year's hearing and are you getting a better response from agency labs now?

Dr. SCHMID. Yes. There are a couple of areas that I think are worthy of mentioning. First of all, we are now getting requests from laboratories who want to become members of the Consortium because they see some benefits in becoming members.

The Veterans Administration, for example, has one of the very interesting things. A couple of years ago, they wanted to—in California, as a matter of fact, have a laboratory, a rehabilitation R&D center, and they wanted to get involved in technology transfer and learn more about it. They thought they could learn that from the FLC; And so we did help them along and they did get involved. They got cooperative agreements going. They have a manual on how to implement technology transfer and now we're starting to— other members are starting to learn from them.

Mr. VALENTINE. Are legislative changes needed, in your opinion, to improve the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer?

Dr. SCHMID. You say, are there-is there other-

Mr. VALENTINE. Yes, additional legislative initiatives? Is there anything that we can do to help this along legislatively?

Dr. SCHMID. I cannot think of anything at this particular point in time. I think the thing that applies-and some of my remarks relate more to the agency level in terms of creating this environment of involvement and also, on our side, getting out and making the laboratories and agencies more aware of the benefits of participating in the Consortium and that's where we're focusing some of our efforts.

Mr. VALENTINE. Could you describe for us the FLC relationship with State and the local governments?

Dr. SCHMID. Yes. Starting with that 1988 work with the VoTech group in Oklahoma, we have been improving at each stage with the State. An example-in the State of Washington, where the National Institute of Standards and Technologies and ourselves, at their request, went in and explained to them some opportunities that existed for workshops and asked them, what of some of these things would best serve their needs in the State because each group, whether it be a small business development center group or whether it be a Vo Ed, vocational education group, or whether it be community colleges-all have different needs, and we're zeroing in, really, in a way on kind of a generic system that we can then adjust, depending on specific needs in a State, and this system starts with kind of looking at each State in terms of what exists in that State and what connections of the State network can be made with Federal networks that accomplish this, allowing the small businesses in that State and using the State resources to get information from the data bases that are already in existence that will help answer their requests and needs, whether they end up being in the business and management end or on the technical end, and then in more of a one-stop sort of one-stop shop way, get a connection with a Federal laboratory if that's needed.

Sometimes we also go back and have a more direct involvement with the small business themselves in terms of having some laboratories present in the State and letting the small businesses see what is going on at the laboratory that might be of interest to them.

Mr. VALENTINE. Dr. Princiotta, what do you perceive as the biggest, biggest hurdle or the biggest hurdles to overcome in order to comply with the law?

Dr. PRINCIOTTA. I think our experience would suggest that education on both sides of the technology transfer equation would be useful. I think even on the industry side, our-my sense is that some-particularly the smaller and mid-sized industrial concerns are really not necessarily familiar with the Federal Technology Transfer Act and maybe the smaller companies may not even be familiar that there are opportunities in the public sector research to milk from a commercial viewpoint.

So perhaps some educational information transfer programs aimed at educating our private sector folks would be useful. I mentioned during my testimony that on the public side, on the Federal side, I think it's very important that our researchers when they're developing technology or even doing applied research keep in mind the ultimate possibility of commercialization. In so doing, one can-does not redesign the research project to try to raise the probability that at the tail end of the process, there'll be the opportunity to commercialize the technology.

For example, in our laboratory, we're looking at advanced wood stoves with the aim of cutting down their emission of particulates and toxic air pollutants, and I've been working very closely with my people to encourage them to think clearly and carefully as to how we ultimately can move this technology into the marketplace because just-it may not be adequate just to come up with some reports on how this particular stove can accomplish a certain environmental goal. We really need to see this technology move into the marketplace to help resolve that particular problem.

If I were to cite those two-those two facets as being ways that we can improve the process.

Mr. VALENTINE. In our district, and I'm sure in many other congressional districts in the United States, we have conducted Federal procurement seminars for small business because we-of the fact that presumably large corporations know how to deal with the Federal Government and these small companies are afraid even to try and-does this technology transfer lend itself, in your opinion, to the same type of▬▬

Dr. PRINCIOTTA. I think it would. I think it would be useful for the smaller companies to have someone knowledgeable in the Federal Technology Transfer Act and perhaps even knowledgeable on what the Federal Government is doing in the areas of interest to them as far as technology so that they would have the opportunity to communicate with the appropriate research laboratories and see if there's a connection between what the Federal researchers are doing and what their commercial needs may be.

Mr. VALENTINE. What is your organization doing, Dr. Princiotta, to-to help publicize its technology transfer activities and to coordinate technology transfer activities with other Federal agencies?

Dr. PRINCIOTTA. As far as what we're doing as a laboratory, we have had a tradition of active technology transfer via symposia, which I mentioned earlier. We've even had-we've even gone beyond just this symposia, which normally tells about all the research, development and demonstration activities of our laboratoryrelated research. We find it useful to sometimes target on a particular technology.

As I mentioned briefly, last week, in fact, we targeted this LIMB technology. The acid rain legislation appears close to passage. We have a technology, we think, can be important, so we went out of our way to design a particular technology transfer conference on the subject of that particular technology as it would relate to the Clean Air Act.

So I think that targeting of a technology to a particular audience can be very useful as well.

As far as other agencies are concerned, probably the most important agency that my laboratory deals with is the Department of Energy because we do related research. They also have a very active program in the air pollution control research area and we do have periodic meetings whereby we explain to each other what we're up to, transfer information and hopefully come back smarter as a result.

Mr. VALENTINE. Has your lab received adequate guidance and encouragement from the agency to implement the law?

Dr. PRINCIOTTA. I say clearly, yes. The agency has enthusiastically embraced the concept of technology transfer and we've got all the help we need.

Mr. VALENTINE. Do you feel, Doctor, that any further legislative initiatives are called for at this time?

Dr. PRINCIOTTA. I would just suggest that perhaps your Subcommittee could at least think of this copyright issue that you've heard about previously because software is becoming a very important product of commerce and it would seem to me, at least, that-I don't know if the agency has a position on this or not, but it would seem to me that that would benefit from encouragement, as do the other patentable technologies.

I would also suggest that it's my understanding that there may be a little bit of an unclear aspect to the current FTTA as far as whether a cooperative research and development agreement can include a licensing provision for existing technology. There's apparently some confusion on that.

In our particular case, it would have been very useful if the Act would have been clear on that and would have given such-would have allowed such an agreement to be embodied within the CRDA. As it turns out, our particular cooperative research and development agreement will not include a-such a licensing agreement, but we'll have to negotiate that separately from the actual cooperative research and development agreement, so perhaps some clarification on whether or not licensing of previously patentable concepts could be embraced within the CRDA would be useful.

Mr. VALENTINE. Mr. Moran, it appears from your testimony that SERI is active, very active in this Federal Lab Consortium. Mr. MORAN. Yes, we are.

Mr. VALENTINE. Do you have any ideas as to how to encourage other perhaps smaller, less active labs to become more interested? Mr. MORAN. I think many of them are already. In fact, I wanted to point out to you, and I'm glad you give me the opportunity, that there may be some misleading information in the summary of the GAO survey. I noticed that question 75 asks, does your laboratory have a representative to the Federal Laboratory Consortium? The answer, yes, was 34 and no, 154. I'm sure there are more than 34 designated representatives to FLC. In our directory, there are nearly 200, in fact. At the Laboratory Consortium meeting next week that our laboratory is hosting, we have over 300 people registered, at least two-thirds of those from the laboratories, so I think that particular statistic is somehow in error.

To encourage some of the smaller labs to participate, however, we do offer, through FLC, some very interesting training programs. We have one lined up for next Thursday morning, as a matter of fact, and we try to cater, I believe, because I have a certain bias in this regard, being one myself, to the representatives of the smaller laboratories in the programs that are presented.

The semi-annual meetings of FLC are occasions when all of the laboratory representatives do get together and share ideas and we'd like to see the smaller labs represented there as well.

Mr. VALENTINE. There seems to be an indication that in many cases, the personnel in the Federal labs do not have sufficient knowledge or the skills which are essential in effectively negotiating these complex and complicated agreements with the private sector.

Do you have any recommendations as to how we might overcome this, short of hiring a lawyer for everybody?

Mr. MORAN. Actually, I think that the NCTTA, the Act of November, '89, suggests an approach to make that possible and that's a model agreement which can be made available to the laboratories and the laboratories can make available to their researchers as a talking piece. If that model agreement is generally adhered to, then it's going to be very easy, I think, for even the average bench researcher to understand the arrangements involved in making such agreements.

Mr. VALENTINE. Can you tell us to what extent technology transfer efforts have been made a part of the job performance and evaluation of employees?

Mr. MORAN. At our lab?

Mr. VALENTINE. Yes, sir.

Mr. MORAN. Technology transfer, and perhaps in a broader sense, we'll use the term occasionally business development, is a part of the performance review of all of our managers. It's inherent, although not spelled out, in the performance criteria for all of the individual researchers and, for that matter, the administrative staff that have relevant positions, so it is a criteria in evaluating performance of all of our staff.

Mr. VALENTINE. And do you have any recommendations to us as to legislative, additional legislative initiatives?

Mr. MORAN. There are a couple of points, I think, that some of my thoughts have already been mentioned by my colleagues. The Act of November, '89, does provide some protection now of rights in

data for up to five years, but only under the cooperative research and development agreements. It would be very helpful to have that sort of protection more broadly available, and for other arrangements or other situations of transfer or collaboration with industry.

The clarification of patent or copyright of software has been mentioned. Perhaps one of the most binding concerns we have is the availability of resources to support our technology transfer activities. At present there is no line item for that. It comes out of either our overhead expense or directly out of program moneys and, of course, there's resistance in both parties-both aspects, to expenditures beyond their primary purposes.

So we would like to see some more specific resources made available for supporting technology transfer, perhaps a line item in the budgets.

Mr. VALENTINE. Mr. Brown.

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Again, let me commend the witnesses for giving us a very excellent presentation on the status of this complex field.

Dr. Schmid, you take the most comprehensive approach to this, as is appropriate in your role with the Federal Laboratory Consortium, and you seem to feel that we are making real progress in this overall effort. You indicate that a lot of the issues are being worked on at the local level that need some resolution and you point out a couple of things that are of particular interest to me. One, you mentioned in a couple of places the use of teleconferencing as a way of getting better communication. I'd like to ask you if you are aware of or have considered the possibility of even further enhancement through video conferencing, which is becoming increasingly available technology. Many of the laboratories now have video conferencing capability and can not only engage researchers face-to-face by video, but can transfer documents, design plans, things of that sort at the same time as they engage in-in the conference.

The technology is moving rapidly. It's becoming less expensive, particularly if you use what I think is called compressed video, which doesn't require the band width that normal video does. Do you have any reaction to the possibility of further enhancement of the communication process through that use of technology?

Dr. SCHMID. Yes. I believe there could be further use and enhancement in communications using it. I personally, with some of my colleagues, have tried it. Some of the problems we ran into is although that some labs have available, we find that quite frequently the ones that we want to communicate with don't. Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Dr. SCHMID. And so we run into a problem of its availability. Mr. BROWN. It's probably going to start being available only in the larger labs-

Dr. SCHMID. Right.

Mr. BROWN. I know NASA has it to their centers. The Defense Department has it in some cases and a few others have it.

Dr. SCHMID. Yes, and also, some agencies will have it in their agency location and at their several labs around that location and they can participate in it.