PHS may determine that it is necessary to seek patent protection on its inventions when doing so would facilitate the commercial development of products or services that will benefit the public health, or when a patent will advance any other PHS objective. The decision to file will also be informed by other PHS policies as appropriate, including, for example, the NIH Policies on research tools¹ and genomic inventions.²

Select here to review the PHS Policy on the Filing of Patent Applications for PHS Inventions

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1 "NIH Principles and Guidelines for Sharing of Biomedical Resources – Final" (December 1999), available online here:

2 "Best Practices for the Licensing of Genomic Inventions: Final Notice" (April 2005), available online here: