The Rocket Scientists Have Arrived
An Update on the Pentagon Patent Holiday Program
Hello from FedInvent,
Patents from America’s rocket scientists and space and satellite innovators at The Aerospace Corporation have been added to the Pentagon Patent Holiday portfolio. The portfolio has risen from 518 patents to 812 patents and pending applications, with the addition of 292 space, satellite, materials, and microelectronics inventions from The Aerospace Corporation.
FedInvent updated its DOD Patent Holiday portfolio, so you can search all patents in the program in one place. You can assess the database here.
About The Aerospace Corporation
The Aerospace Corporation sits at the nexus of space, national security, and the emerging space economy. And they invent very cool things.
The Aerospace Corporation is an American nonprofit that operates a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), providing independent technical oversight and objective analysis for U.S. national security space programs. The corporation provides technical guidance and advice on all aspects of space missions to military, civil, and commercial customers, working closely with organizations such as the United States Space Force (USSF) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
Like other FFRDCs and the federal government, it doesn’t make anything. It relies on the commercialization of its discoveries to move these inventions to defense contractors and space entrepreneurs, and to get them into space. Licensing its technology is important.
The Aerospace Corporation IP Portfolio
From 2005 through 2026 year-to-date, The Aerospace Corporation received 513 patents. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of that portfolio is included in the Pentagon Patent Holiday program. The Aerospace Corporation's list also includes several patent applications. The Aerospace Corporation has one notice of award and several final and non-final rejections on the applications on the list.
The Pentagon Patent Holiday Program Needs Improvements
Buried in the portfolio of taxpayer-funded patents owned by the US government are the most extraordinary inventions that focus on keeping Americans safe and secure, and on maintaining American competitiveness. Finding and licensing these patents shouldn’t be this hard
Finding and assessing the IP assets available through the Pentagon Patent Holiday Program is daunting and not designed for IP professionals. It doesn’t need to be this hard. Start with a single button that says “PATENTS”. Click the button and download the list.
The portion of the Patent Holiday from the DOD-sponsored FFRDCs is particularly challenging.
First, three FFRDC portfolios available through the program — The Aerospace Corporation portfolio, the MIT Lincoln Labs patents, and the MITRE National Security Engineering Center (NSEC) patents — appear in PDF versions of a spreadsheet. The spreadsheets are unsortable. Each spreadsheet has different information.
To add to the fun, you can’t compare the IP offered by each of the FFRDCs to other technologies available from DOD researchers. If you are building a portfolio of autonomous vehicles, you may want to see all your options and, perhaps more importantly, ensure that none of these patents step on each other. (Check out the KRILL portfolio. There are some very fascinating inventions.)
Some of The Aerospace Corporation's patents have expired. Other than tipping off evaluators to potential prior art, having expired patents in a portfolio of IP available for licensing makes no sense unless they are linked to the live IP. And if there is a link, explain it.
If the draft Commercial License Agreement (CEL) is available on the TechLink site, it’s hard to find. If the USDA can publish its CEL, why can’t DOD? It speeds up the process.
It’s also unclear from the TechLink site whether parties interested in the patents can take advantage of the same two-year free-of-charge commercial evaluation license.
Space Junk
There are six new additions to the portfolio that deal with space debris. They are tagged as SPACE JUNK. Even if you don’t want to license the patents, these are good reads for understanding the complexities and approaches for cleaning up all the space leftovers.
A Quick Update
We wanted to share the updated patent portfolio with you. If you haven’t read the first Pentagon Patent Holiday newsletter, you can read it here.
As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@wayfinder.digital if you have questions or want to share your thoughts. You can also visit us at wayfinder.digital
Happy Hunting
Check out the Pentagon Patent Holiday portfolio. Bring your IP shopping list.
Thanks for reading FedInvent. Please share our newsletters with other patent and IP enthusiasts. We’ll be back soon.
The Team at FedInvent