Awards are competitive and merit based.
Companies with fewer than 10 employees have received approximately one third of the awards. The funded small business suffers no equity loss and retains most project generated intellectual property rights, with governmental exclusion the only penalty. It is doing exactly what the Congress wanted it to do. However, Montana and several other rural states have been under served considering the large federal SBIR reservoir. Senator Conrad Burns recently sponsored legislation to provide outreach efforts and increase program participation in rural states.