Added Value of Dual-Use Technologies 

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A new study reveals that technologies developed in the armed forces have extensive influence over the US national economy. The total economic activity by businesses that build products and services around dual-use technologies invented in military laboratories reaches   $58 billion.

Sales of new products and services by companies with Department of Defense license agreements reached nearly $27 billion.

The purpose of TechLink’s study was to determine the extent to which the license agreements contributed to new economic activity and job creation in the United States.

“Recognize that military laboratories support warfighters first but also the economy by allowing their dual-use inventions to be used by private companies who turn them into products available in commercial markets,” said Brett Cusker, TechLink’s executive director.

“License agreements often allow businesses to build new products on shoestring R&D budgets. And the resulting products are often transitioned through acquisition back to the warfighter,” he said.

U.S. law mandates that federal agencies make their inventions available to the private sector to benefit the nation’s economy. License agreements are used to transfer the intellectual property rights on these inventions from the government to private businesses, according to techlinkcenter.org.

TechLink is a DOD-funded technology transfer center at Montana State University, and it conducted the study in collaboration with the Business Research Division of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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