Advisory to Government Agency on Adoption of New Technology

A government agency sought advice regarding the adoption of new technology to improve a process that was previously done manually. The agency had funded the research and was looking at how to best deal with the intellectual property rights of the new technology. CCCS advised that an assignment of the IP rights might restrict competition given a lack of alternative suppliers in view of the nascent technology. To ameliorate this, the agency could consider limiting the scope of the assignment of the IP rights rather than assigning the IP rights of the product in its entirety so as to lower the barriers to entry for potential competitors. The terms, conditions and duration of the licensing of the IP rights should also be designed appropriately to ensure that the market remains contestable.