35 U.S.C. § 204
Section 204 · Preference for United States industry
This is § 6 of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case 804 F. Supp. 614 - Ciba-Geigy Corp. v. Alza Corp. (1992)
Most recently applied in 929 F. Supp. 2d 962 - Minden Pictures, Inc. v. Pearson Education, Inc. (March 2013)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, no small business firm or nonprofit organization which receives title to any subject invention and no assignee of any such small business firm or nonprofit organization shall grant to any person the exclusive right to use or sell any subject invention in the United States unless such person agrees that any products embodying the subject invention or produced through the use of the subject invention will be manufactured substantially in the United States. However, in individual cases, the requirement for such an agreement may be waived by the Federal agency under whose funding agreement the invention was made upon a showing by the small business firm, nonprofit organization, or assignee that reasonable but unsuccessful efforts have been made to grant licenses on similar terms to potential licensees that would be likely to manufacture substantially in the United States or that under the circumstances domestic manufacture is not commercially feasible.