The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has designated NIH as the lead agency for biomedical technology transfer and intellectual property policy matters for HHS. OTT has the lead responsibility for NIH intramural and extramural technology transfer and intellectual property matters affecting public health. The Division of Policy at OTT is responsible for these functions.

OTT’s policy-related duties include the following:

• Serving as the focal point for NIH comment (through the NIH Office of Legislative and Policy Analysis) on legislative proposals regarding technology transfer and intellectual property policy;
• Serving as coordinator for any updates to the Public Health Service Technology Transfer Manual

Additionally, OTT makes determinations on behalf of NIH related to certain inventorship rights, including:

• Waiver of rights to an NIH invention to the employee inventor;
• Waiver of rights to a grantee/contractor subject invention to the inventor;
• Waiver of the US manufacturing requirement; and
• Assignment of title to a grantee/contractor subject invention to third parties.