Federal agencies fund billions of dollars in research every year. Some of that research produces inventions. Under a 1980 law called the Bayh-Dole Act, the universities, small businesses, and nonprofits that receive this federal funding can keep ownership of the resulting inventions—provided they meet certain reporting requirements. The theory is straightforward: give researchers and institutions a financial stake in commercializing their discoveries, and more federally funded innovation will reach the public as useful products.

When a university or company invents something using federal research funding, the Bayh-Dole Act gives them the right to keep it. So why do about one in five choose not to? GAO’s April 2026 technology transfer report (GAO-26-107971) provides the most detailed public accounting of this question to date, drawing on five years of invention disclosure data from 30 federal agencies covering fiscal years 2020 through 2024. The data reveals a practical picture of how institutions make IP decisions—one that has more to do with commercial realism than with any failure of the incentive structure.