Speaker 1  0:00  
All right. Good afternoon and welcome to today's webinar. I Edison utilization reporting update presented by Autumn. My name is Sammy Spiegel, autumns professional development manager and I will be your staff host for today. All lines have been muted to ensure high quality audio and today's session is being recorded. If you have a question for our presenter, we encourage you to use the q&a feature on your zoom toolbar. If you have a technical question or a comment, please feel free to use the chat. Should you need closed captioning during today's session, the Zoom live transcript feature is turned on and available on your toolbar. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank autumns online professional development sponsor Marshall Gerstein IP, we appreciate your ongoing support. I now have the pleasure of introducing you to today's presenter Bethany Lofton. Bethany is the Acting Director of the Technology Partnerships office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. She works on the coordination and design of NIST I Edison website, and acts as a liaison for intramural and external users of the i Edison system. Bethany also assists with polyfuse policy formulation and the implementation with an emphasis on idle regulations and administration of the interagency working group for vital. Prior to joining the TPO, Bethany's spent more than eight years as Director and Chief Operating Officer at Tremonti consulting. While at Tremonti, she supported numerous technology transfer offices throughout the commercialization process. Bethany holds a JD from the University of Louisville, and a BS and recording industry from Middle Tennessee State University. Welcome, Bethany. We are so excited to learn from you today. And I will turn it over to you to get started. Thanks,

Bethany Loftin  1:45  
Amy. I appreciate it. And thank you for having me today and being able to spread some new information to the autumn community. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here.

I'm going to do this just a little this way. So I get the views I need. Hang on, let me escape this. couple extra clicks, everybody.

Unknown Speaker  2:18  
I messed you up by having my slides gone first.

Bethany Loftin  2:21  
No problem at all.

All right. Is that working on your end? Yes. Looks good. Wonderful. So what I wanted to discuss with you all today and make sure everybody was aware of are some changes that are underway in regards to our utilization reporting. So a couple of the things I'm going to talk about today, I'm going to talk about what utilization reporting is, how it currently works, what the changes are, that are coming so that you can be aware of those and how those changes are going to be implemented. How we are preparing for those changes and how you can prepare for those changes that are coming up. So the first thing we're going to go over is just utilization reports as it currently as they currently exist, and how they currently work. So utilization reporting is discussed in both the vital statute and the implementing regulations. It's actually in the regulations currently in two different places. One is at 37 CFR 418. And then the other one is at 37 CFR four one, point 14, Section H. And basically what that says is that, you know, you as the contractor or the awardee are going to submit, or you are required to submit annual reports on the utilization activities or your efforts at obtaining utilization to your funding agency up to annually. So we can ask for these reports, as funding agencies when we want to, but we we can ask for them up to once a year. And the regulations and the statute are pretty broad as to what we can actually ask for in those utilization reports. So really, the agencies can look at what type of information they need to obtain from you. And they can ask you for things like stage of development data, first commercial sale or use royalties that are received. And then there's this really broad statement, other data and information as the agency may reasonably specify. And so basically that gives us a very broad You know, a very broad ability for what we're able to ask you all about what's going on with these inventions. And I'll talk to you in just a little bit about why we might ask those questions. And and sort of the importance on obtaining that information. But I did want to point out also, because this is a question that we regularly get, for people who may be hesitant to provide this information under their utilization reporting, is that it is written out in the regulations, that as required by 35, USC 202 C five, which is the actual statute itself, the law passed by Congress, the agency is not going to disclose this information to people outside of the government, without your permission. So rest easy on that this isn't information that we're just going to, you know, make available to the public or anything like that this is really information that that we will use, you know, internally for, for our own government purposes and to achieve a number of different objectives. Which leads me into why is utilization reporting important? So there's a number of different reasons why we collect utilization reporting, or why we might want to collect utilization information. And, and really, there's an endless number of reasons why we might, but the main ones are really going to be things like identifying the outputs of the programs. So the federal government is investing, you know, billions of dollars into this research. And, you know, we want to see what is the what are the outputs of those programs, what's coming out of the programs, in terms of, you know, inventions and patents and products? And, you know, what type of new jobs are being created? What sort of impact are are these outputs having on the on the economy, and it helps us in calculating the taxpayer return on investment, for the investment in that scientific research, and it helps us explain to people like Congress and the White House when they ask us, you know, hey, you know, why should we keep investing in these programs? Why should we keep funding research, we can point to real solid numbers to say, although we recognize the importance of publications, and just getting the data out there and getting the science out there, but it's also really great to be able to point to, here are some big success stories, here are some products that are on the market, that wouldn't be on the market, if the federal government hadn't invested in these technologies. You know, here's here are jobs that have been created here are, you know, you know, licenses and things that are going to support small businesses and things like that. So it really helps us tell the story of what is happening with the research funding. Also, it helps us establish compliance with some of the specific requirements that we may have. You know, we don't know the numbers unless we get the data in. So that's a the way that we can get some of that information to ensure compliance is to ask those questions. And there has been an increased interest in utilization reporting over the last several years. So for example, in the summer of 2021, the President issued an executive order on promoting competition in the American economy. That was Executive Order 14 036. And within that executive order, the President directed the secretary of commerce through the director of NIS to consider a rulemaking that the agencies would provide an annual report to NIST on the information, the utilization information that they had collected from their awardees. So you can imagine, you know, the, the, all the way up to the to the White House, they are interested in Hey, what's happening with these inventions? And obviously, if the President is asking the agencies for this information, we have to ask you all for that information so that we have information to provide. So how does utilization currently work? Right now, again, under the regulations, any of the agencies can ask you for utilization reporting up to annually, however, up until this point, on Um, NIH and DOD have been the only two agencies to ask for utilization reporting. As a matter of course, on an annual basis within I, Edison. Other agencies might ask you for utilization reporting, but it may only be for certain inventions, it may only be at certain times, they may ask for it outside of Edison or something like that. But NIH and DOD were really the two agencies that were regularly collecting that information. And in I, Edison, you would know that you needed to file a utilization report for that invention, because you would get a notification and I Edison every year, that told you that a utilization report was due for each technology that you needed to submit that for. And for those DOD and NIH funded technologies, you would get a notification for each invention, which you had either elected title, or if it was NIH, you can select to designate it as an unpatented biological material or research tool, and you would get a notification for that. So basically, every year, every invention, that you had a leg title, or biological material or research tool, if it was NIH, or DOD funded, you would get a notification for each one of those every single year that tells you you need it to do those utilization reports. And all of those utilization reports would be due at the end of your fiscal year that you indicated in I Edison as your reporting period. So when you create a dry Edison account, you would say, hey, our fiscal year, you know, starts in July. So then at the end of your fiscal year, on June 30, you would go to sleep, and maybe you would have zero notifications. And then on July 1, when you woke up, you might have, you know, 200 notifications, and all 200 of those notifications were notifications of your that last year's utilization report that was now due for each one of those technologies.

And then you would go into isn for each invention you'd go in, and you would get a list of questions that were populated. And you could go in and answer those questions and submit those for your utilization reports. Now, the questions that are used in the current medicine system right now, these are questions that were pulled over from the NIH system, we made very few changes in those questions from the transfer of the Nihi Edison system to the new NIST system. For the most part, those questions were kept exactly the same. And those questions consisted of some basic questions plus a few supplemental questions if the invention was FDA approved, or had DoD funding. So just as an overview of what the current AI Edison questions include, it starts off with that stage of development. So is it not licensed, licensed or commercialized? If it was commercialized? What is the date of first commercial sale? What's the total income received from licenses and options? If you add it asks if you have requested any domestic manufacturing waivers, and if so how many were granted, it asks for the number of exclusive licenses, exclusive licenses and options that you have during that reporting period, the number of non exclusive licenses and options that you have during that reporting period, and the number of licenses to small businesses of less than 500 employees. Then if you're if you have any products under that subject, invention that are FDA approved, then you will, you would need to include the product name, the FDA approval number, the type of product that it is and the approval status. And then for DOD funded technologies, you would be asked a few more additional questions, including the approximate number of US base jobs created because of commercialization of that subject invention, the number of US companies that were created because of commercialization of that invention, how your development and commercialization complied with the US manufacturing requirements. If you had products on the market, what those commercial product names were, if they had a NAICS code, what those codes were, where those products were being manufactured and the first date of manufacturing for those and again, those are only in the current system for those DoD funded technologies. So that's how utilization has worked up until this point, but the utilization reports are going to be changing. And so now we're gonna go over basically all of what all of those changes were, and why these changes were enacted, basically, that increased interest that the agencies are receiving for utilization reporting, have really brought us to make some some big changes to how we are collecting for a utilization reporting and what questions we are asking for our utilization reporting. So I mentioned that executive order from the President, I don't think it's any secret to anyone, if you watch the news that there is an increased interest on making sure that we are focusing on domestic manufacturing and, you know, putting an extra focus on when inventions are funded in the United States that they are being manufactured in the United States. And with that interest, we need to, you know, we are looking at ensuring that our awardees are in compliance with their domestic manufacturing requirements under the by Dole Act and the by DOL regulations. So we're making a lot of changes to utilization reports, as a result of this, who is asking for utilization reporting is going to change? When we are asking for utilization reporting is going to change? The questions that we're asking are going to change? And then how those questions are actually going to be asked and I Edison, we're going to make some adjustments to that as well to try to make submission of the utilization reports easier on you. So let's start with who is asking for utilization reporting. Well, I mentioned previously that only doe and NIH were regularly asking for utilization reports within I Edison, that is going to change starting on October 1 2023. At that time, all of the agencies who utilize I Edison are going to start asking for utilization questions. I can't speak for the agencies that don't use I Edison, but what I can say is that they have been involved in this process. So I would not be surprised if they asked you to collect that information as well. But all of the agencies and I, Edison will be requesting the utilization report starting on October 1. And that will happen automatically, just like it does now, you'll receive those notifications, you'll receive notifications for each technology for each year that those notifications are due. Now, these will be four reports that will start in 2023. Moving forward, so we aren't going to generate years past notifications for those agencies. So for example, if you have a NIST funded invention, and you elected title for that invention back in 2010, we're not going to ask you for 2010, you know, through 22, right, we're just going to start in 2023. So we're not retro actively sending you out notifications, just for the the new reports moving forward for those agencies that didn't previously request utilization reports. Now, that being said, if you have inventions that had past due notifications for NIH, and DOD, those will still be due, those are not going away, you still have to do those old reports, because they've always been asking for those utilization reports. So you are still going to have to provide them what they have already asked for in the past. Now, everything prior to October 120 23, will be the previous questions in the previous style. It's just that for things moving forward, Oct. 120 23. That's when the utilization reporting will change. Another big change is going to be when that utilization reporting was due. So I mentioned earlier that currently, utilization reports are due for the previous year. They've kind of become due at midnight on the last day of your fiscal year. So they're kind of due on the first day of your fiscal year. So again, if your fiscal year runs July one to June 30, all of your notifications would kick in on July one starting on October 1 of 2023. That's going to change. Everybody's utilization reports will be due on October 1 of 2023. And that's so everyone is on the same reporting schedule, so that the agencies can can get consistent data all across each agency for all of their awardees. Now, in order to do that, because remember I mentioned previously in the regulations that it says we can't ask you for this information more than annually. So if your fiscal year and I Edison is set to or sorry, your fiscal month, and I Edison is set to January, you may have noticed that you didn't get your utilization reports in January. And that's because as of October 120 22, we paused utilization reports with due dates between October second 2022, and September 30, of 2023. Now, again, that's not going to say that all of your past due notifications wouldn't generate, those would still generate, but any new ones that had due dates between October 2 2022, and September 30 of 2023 would not be generated. If you have gotten any that were due both in that timeframe, please let us know. That would be a glitch and or a bug in the system. And we would want to address that. But in Edison, you should not have gotten any utilization notifications between October 2 22, and September 30 2023. So again, if you had that January due date set, you might have wondered why your notifications didn't come up, maybe you're happy they didn't come up, but you might have thought it was a little strange. That's why they didn't come up. But those new notifications for utilization reporting will resume on October 120 23. Everyone will get their their notifications for the for the previous years utilization reporting. So you can think of it a little bit like a utilization holiday, where you have a little bit of a timeframe where you won't be getting those new utilization reports, if your

fiscal month was set somewhere between, you know, November and, and September. Unfortunately, if you were set, or maybe fortunately, if your year was already set in October one, you won't notice a change at all, everything's just gonna be the exact same for you. So then what questions are being asked to this is a big one, of course everyone wants to know what we're going to be asking. We do not have those questions finalized just yet. We are in the very final stages of getting those finalized. The interagency working group for by DOD has been working for the on these questions for months to come up with a common set of questions that you'll be asked by each funding agency. Now, because different funding agencies have different, they have different needs, they have different missions. There may be a few supplemental questions that get asked by certain funding agencies only if they are listed as a funding agency for that specific invention. So just like now, you have a couple of those extra doe questions. If an invention is DoD funded, each agency will have the opportunity to ask for a few supplemental questions in addition to our sort of standard set of questions, but across the board, generally, it's going to be the exact same questions for every agency across the board. Again, we're still finalizing these questions, I do anticipate that we will be able to announce those in the next few weeks. So please keep an eye on the eye Edison homepage at eye edison.gov. We will post information there. We will also send that information to autumn whenever we do announce what those questions are going to be. So that you're all aware of but we'll also post that on our on our homepage as well. So please keep an eye out for that. Don't worry too much. These questions are largely based on the previous utilization questions. So one of the things that was important to us when we were developing these questions was a continuity. So for example, since DOD and NIH have been asking these questions for several years. We wanted the data that they had collected in those past years to be complementary to the data that we'll be collecting now so that they can you know, track trends and things like that, that they may want to do. So the questions are very similar to previously asked utilization questions. There just may be some changes and some additions I can't say exactly what those questions are going to be since they aren't finalized yet. But I can tell you, unless there are any just major changes that come in the next, you know, few weeks, which I don't anticipate, you're going to see those questions about that stage of development, you're gonna still be asked questions about revenue that you've received numbers of license agreements and options, you're going to be asked about products. And you're also going to be asked about manufacturing locations. Again, there is an increased interest in the domestic manufacturing requirements. And so we are going to be asking questions on those to ensure that that requirement in the vital Act and the regulations is being met. Now, we are working in AI Edison to develop a process through which these questions can be asked in I Edison, and what we're working on is really a the questions will progress in such a way in that you'll be asked, the questions that you were asked will be related to the response previously given. And what I mean by that is, it's a little bit like a choose your own adventure, except you're entering in the accurate information, that first question, we anticipate it's still going to be that stage of development question just like you have now, right? And similar to now, it's going to be very similar to, you know, licensed, commercialized or not licensed or commercialized, based on the your response to that question that will determine what subsequent questions you're asked. So if you select not licensed or commercialized, you're not going to be asked the licensing questions because they would not be applicable. But if you selected licensed, then you're going to be asked questions about the licensing activity. But you won't be asked about products and things like that, because it's not commercialized. Once it's commercial. Once you select commercialize, then you're going to be asked questions about licenses, and you're going to be asked questions about products. And again, your responses to certain answers may, you know result in additional additional questions or affect the subsequent subsequent questions that you're asked. So our goal is to only ask you those questions that are applicable to you. Also, one of the things that we'll do, which we have implemented in the in the new AI Edison system that launched in August, is, once you have reported your first utilization for an invention, we're going to take that utilization information and use that information to auto populate this the next year that you go to enter. So if nothing has changed, you know, maybe you have an invention that was not licensed last year, it's not licensed this year. So you just select not licensed or commercialized the next year, that's going to auto populate for you. If nothing has changed, and it's still not licensed or commercialized, you can just hit save. Or if that has changed, and maybe this is licensed or it's commercialized, you can update your answers in the system to reflect accurately what's going on. Now for that particular invention in the in the fiscal year you're reporting for now. So we are trying to make this to where it is easier for you to answer those questions and not have to, you know, go through and repeat information every single year. So how can you prepare for these changes that are upcoming? Well, there are several things that we're doing to prepare. The first thing, obviously, is we're finalizing those questions. So again, please keep an eye and an ear out because those will be coming in the next few weeks. And they will be again announced and posted on the AI Edison homepage@www.irs.gov. If you are like me and your computer is smart enough now that when you type in AI Edison, it just takes you straight to the application. And it doesn't take you to the actual AI Edison homepage at ai edison.gov. I encourage you to actively go to that web page periodically to check we do put updates and announcements on there and things like that. So even without the utilization changes, I hope that you will sometimes just go to the i Edison homepage to see about different updates and news and things that's happening in relation to I Edison. And again, we will notify autumn so that they can let you all know when those questions have been announced. It's very important for us that we announce those As soon as possible, so that we can give you all as much time to prepare for answering those questions as possible. So we didn't want to sneak this up on you. That's why we're doing this presentation. Now, even before we have the questions, finalize, just so you can start preparing. And you'll have a long runway to collect information that you might not already be collecting, and get ready for the changes that are coming. We're also going to be developing an interagency document that will help you as a guide to answer the questions that were asking. So that we'll have definitions and examples across the agencies, to for you to use as an aid when you're answering these questions. So currently, we get a lot of questions like well, what do you mean by commercialized? What do you mean by license? What do you mean by option right now from Nis and the IRS and help desk perspective, because these questions are asked, really agency by agency, we can't provide you a whole lot of input because they're really being asked by your funding agency. But what we're doing through the interagency working group for my goal is we are coming together, we've developed these questions together, we're going to provide you with instruction and definition and examples all together, so that you can know what we mean by certain things or what we're looking for, or how you might treat certain scenarios when it comes to splitting revenue or, or things like that.

Again, we are going to have those standard questions the interagency guide document will cover those standard questions. But if an agency asks supplemental questions, you'll need to ask the agency for direction on what they mean for those. So for example, NIST or I Edison Help Desk could not tell you, hey, what does, you know, this question that's only asked by this other agency mean? Because really, it's that agency that's asking the question. So you'll, you'll need to ask them that. One of the things that I'll also note, and I'm sorry, I didn't point this out. Again, not. The questions aren't finalized yet. But one of the things that we are likely going to have is a notes section at the bottom. Generally, that Notes section is going to be optional. But the notes section at the end of the utilization report will just be there for you if you think there's something weird or unusual about this particular invention, or report, and you just want to explain like, Hey, I wasn't sure how to do X, Y, or Z. So this is how I answered the question. You can explain any anomalies in that in that note section. Again, it's not going to be required. It's optional for you, but we just wanted to provide you with the opportunity to explain anything that might be that might look off in your, in your answers to your utilization questions. We are already starting the development of this, of the new questions and the new structure of the questions in the system, we do hope that we'll have some, some beta testing time available to to help, you know, make sure that we're working out as much of the bugs as possible as we can. So we are getting a jump on this early. Again, we don't want to any of anything to come out of nowhere at you all we're wanting to give you enough time to to prepare for this for us to prepare for this so that it's working properly. And then also to provide updated API documentation so that your database can adjust to this right. So there may be some additional data points that they need to add into the IP database. And they will likely have to update their their programming in order to to utilize the API functionality. We will be updating that API functionality prior to the the changes being implemented in October so that there will be plenty of time for your databases to update and adjust to that change. We are also going to do our best to update the bulk upload capacity. So that if you are utilizing bulk upload for your utilization reporting, that you'll be able to do that as well. So those are sort of all the things that we're doing to prepare and try to help you through this process. But then, there's also some things that you all can do to to get ready. Again, we're trying to give enough of an advance notice that that you aren't taking by surprise and that you have time to start collecting information that you might not already be collecting. So a couple other things that I would recommend that you do is one, make sure you know the status of all of your inventions. So, you know, know if it's licensed or not licensed. I know that seems pretty, pretty straightforward. But it's important to know that and if your invention is, is not licensed, or commercialize, you know, knowing sort of making sure you know what the plan is for that. Because under the regulations, you know, we can ask for your attempts at achieving practical application of that invention and your attempts to, you know, commercialize so so make sure you know, what's going on with your inventions in your portfolio, track which inventions are licensed and who they're licensed to. And you know, whether or not they're, they're a small company, so that you make sure that you can answer the questions that are coming, check all of your license agreements, and make sure that if required, they include those domestic manufacturing requirements. That's something that you know, we should be doing anyway, because, because that is a requirement under the regulations. But you know, if the circumstances exist to where, you know, you are required to have domestic that products be substantially manufactured in the United States, make sure that that language is in those licensing agreements, if it's applicable to those licensing agreements. And then also make sure that your licensees are actually compliant with that requirement. And a lot of that is going to require knowing where products are being manufactured. Again, it's no secret that this domestic manufacturing is of increasing interest to, to the agencies to Congress to the White House. So it's important to know where your products are being manufactured. And then I also recommend that you go back between now and October, and look at your old files and your old cases, and make sure that the things that that you have already closed in your office, if you've abandoned the IP, if you're not pursuing it anymore, that you're making sure that you're updating those records in medicine, you're abandoning those patents, you are changing the title election status as applicable, so that you are not getting utilization report notifications for inventions that you may have closed in your office years and years ago. So take a look at those and and update those files within I Edison. I will say that one of the recent changes that we made, we made it I think it was deployed at the end of 2022. And like December. Previously, you could not select does not retain title. If your invention disclosure had not been accepted, we did make a small change to the system where now you can make that change, you can select does not elect title. If your invention disclosure is not accepted. If the agency does come in after you change the status and they look at your invention disclosure and reject it, you will still have to upload an updated invention disclosure form. But you won't have to get the status change to do that, you'll be able to go ahead and update that invention disclosure form directly yourself. So so that shouldn't hold you back then you shouldn't have those hurdles to changing the status to does not retain title. So I recommend, again that you go up clean up, go through your files, clean up the old files that are closed, and go ahead and make sure that those are closed in I Edison. Obviously, if you haven't uploaded that corrected invention disclosure, we do want you to do that. So while you're at it, go ahead and do that. But you don't have to wait for the invention disclosure to be accepted in order to update the title election status as well hope that's clear. If not, I'm happy to answer some questions on that. Again, we will have more information that will be coming soon we will we will be posting those on the AI Edison homepage regularly. I will probably reinitiate. The is an update server list that we had been utilizing during development we will probably start using that again just to make some of these announcements as well. And and but always we will post all of this on the is in homepage. And we will also make sure that we announced autumn when those questions are finalized. So with that, I will open this up to any questions pins. And yeah, so

Speaker 1  40:04  
excellent. Thank you so much for all this info. Bethany attendees. I know we have a lot of questions that have already been submitted. So thank you continue to get those submitted. Bethany, it looks like we have a lot of timing related questions. So I will try and pare down duplicative ones. But I might repeat myself on a few of these. And we can just say already done. So the first one that we got was will we be able to report based on our institution's fiscal year and again, I think we covered it, but just important to reiterate. So we have those takeaways for attendees. Yeah, so

Bethany Loftin  40:39  
the reports are going to be due on October one, regardless of when your, your you, your fiscal year closes, the due date will be October one. We have not we will provide instructions in our guidance document as to what the reporting period will be. That is something that is still under discussion. So so keep an eye on that. But we will let you know. But everyone will be due on October one, regardless of when you were due, whenever yours were due previously, they're going to be they're going to be due on October one.

Speaker 1  41:22  
Okay, so then as a follow up with that, based on timing, and the kind of pivot year that we're in the middle of right now, someone had said if our fiscal year ends on 630, and the report is do 10. One, will it be for the prior 15 months as opposed to the regular 12 months? Yes, right?

Bethany Loftin  41:40  
That's an excellent question. It is only going to be for a 12 month period, it will not be for you know, if they're there, the agencies all agreed understanding that there would be a gap in data for a lot of institutions. So the reporting period will be for one year, not for one year plus the gap. So don't worry about that. So gonna be one year.

Speaker 1  42:04  
Perfect. Okay. And again, I think that you also had mentioned this, but a question came through about the notification messages that someone would have typically seen for 2022. And when to expect those will they automatically come through or not until the changes that go into effect? are in place? Yeah.

Bethany Loftin  42:23  
So let's say for example, your utilization reporting year is entered into i Edison as January, you are not going to get your this year's you're not going to get those. You'll notice those notifications did not show up on January one, they will not show up until October one. So there because there's that pause on the creation of new utilization notifications until October one. If for some reason, one sneaks in, please send us a helpdesk ticket. And let us know because those should not those notifications should or should not be triggering. Unless, again, unless it was actually due before October one of 2022. So if you had something that you should have reported in the past, but you didn't, that was still going to show up. Okay.

Speaker 1  43:18  
We have two questions very similar. Or related, I guess I will say. So when will the DoD agencies all be using AI Edison? And do we have a list of the government agencies that are currently using the new AI Edison and which are not is that published anywhere? So

Bethany Loftin  43:38  
just like previously, we cannot force NIST cannot force all of the agencies to join I Edison. I will tell you, I work all the time on bringing new agencies on, in fact, we just had a new agency brought on this week, I do have to update the website on that one. So I do apologize. I'm a few days behind that is USGS, so USGS under the Department of Interior has joined by Edison. So if you have USGS inventions, you can now report them through i NSN. So I am working on this all the time to get those to get as many agencies as possible on the platform. But there is not a date where all of the agencies will, will will have to join I Edison that's not something that we as NIST can can require. As far as who's currently using I Edison. We do update the page on the i Edison homepage, we have our I Edison agency contact list. We do on that list, have every agency that does or has used I Edison in the past. I do need to add USGS I'm sorry, I'm a couple days behind. I normally do it that day, but I had a conference yesterday so I'm a bit behind you But that will get updated to include USGS, but we do have all of the agencies on there, if you see an agency on there, and you click that agency, if that agency is inactive, it will list them as inactive underneath their name. So there are some agencies who previously used by Edison, for one reason or another, they didn't come over to the system. Now, some of them we are literally just waiting for paperwork to come through. But others, you know, for one reason or another, aren't rejoining, we had a couple of, of agencies that were listed that they just didn't have a volume of, of inventions coming through, you know, at this time for them to continue using the system. Other agencies are having to go through some chain of command and talk to people and, and looking at, you know, different possibilities, we are in constant discussion with all of the agencies, but but those agencies that do or have are listed under the is in contact, or the agency contact information on the i Edison homepage, if they are inactive, they will be listed as inactive. And if they are reactivated, then we will remove that and there'll be they'll be active again.

Speaker 1  46:25  
Okay, and we can post attendees in the learning center after the session on the landing page where a lot of this information is easy to find. Will there be a provision for information on licenses that are active but only had a one time payment, so will not have an annual revenue stream?

Bethany Loftin  46:47  
Um, we'll talk about that in our guidance document. Generally, I would say if those if those licenses are active, then you would count them as active each year that they were active. But if you only received revenue on them, say in one year, you would just put that revenue under that one year, you wouldn't put it in every single year, because you only received it that that one year. So it is, you know, the the money you have actually received. I can't remember the term for that. I know there's an accounting term for it, but I don't remember.

Speaker 1  47:26  
Okay, just scrolling through, we've lost coming in. There's two questions sort of related on setting timing in is Edison. So one said, did we need do we need to set the time period? And I Edison, if you ask what is it? And then how do you actually change the fiscal year and I Edison? I think you've been doing a lot of trainings on using the system. So if that's a better place to point, folks, shout it out.

Bethany Loftin  47:58  
No, that's okay. We can I can definitely answer that. Now. If you haven't set your fiscal year and I Edison, you do still need to do that. And that's for any of those reports that are overdue, that should have been done in the past, but haven't been done yet. The way that you do that is if you haven't set it already, then you need to go into your organization profile. If you're an admin, that should show up in your main menu on the sidebar. If you go in there, there is a field I believe that field is called fiscal year, fiscal month, start date, something like that. You select from the drop down what month your fiscal year starts on, and then save the organization's profile. And that will set that fiscal year for you. If you have already selected a fiscal year and you want to change it, you'll need to contact the IRS and help desk there's a lot of issues with changing that fiscal year because it does cause discrepancy with data in that there's either an overlap or gap in timeframe when you change your utilization year. So there's a lot of work that goes behind the you know, that goes in relation to that. Now after Oct 120 23, that year will become a little less and less relevant. But again, it doesn't need to be set for all of those previous utilization reports that you should have done for NIH and do a way that maybe you just didn't do because you were late.

Speaker 1  49:39  
Let's see. For a manufacturing location, are you looking at a city level state level or specific address?

Bethany Loftin  49:50  
Again, the questions are not finalized. So I can't say with 100% certainty. I do not anticipate that we are going down to the address level. The country level is what you can most expect. And if it is in the US, maybe the state, but I don't anticipate going in any more detail than that.

Speaker 1  50:16  
We'll have to stay tuned when those questions get released. Okay. What is the appropriate title election status for patent reports and for invention reports where all the patents have expired.

Bethany Loftin  50:36  
So, it depends on what you mean by expired. If you have if all of your patents have expired because they have lived their full life, then there should be an option for those issued patents have expired. If you just abandoned those applications, like maybe you didn't pay a maintenance fee or you didn't answer an office action, then those would be those would be set to abandoned intent to abandon

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