If a tool is new and interesting, its proprietor has likely filed one or more patent applications covering research and, if applicable, commercial uses. Reaching further, a proprietor of the research tool may want to retain any and all benefits of the tool that are derived by a recipient. Publication restrictions prevent wide dissemination of discoveries about the tool. In short, the proprietor may require a recipient to mortgage interests in future discoveries for present access to a research tool of interest. On the recipient side, restrictive provisions challenge research interests.
Academic researchers value free publication as fundamental.
More prosaically, limitations on the ability to obtain additional tools or funding arise when the fruits of the use of one tool are subject to its providers' rights. Reach-through royalties, which are based on sales of a product that was developed using a tool, rather than the tool itself, oblige the licensee to make payments regardless of the extent to which a tool contributed to the product. Overly burdensome restrictions diminish the desire to obtain or effectively use the tool, resulting in the possibility of research left undone. In particular, the NIH objects to any limitations on publication beyond a reasonable delay to permit patenting, and to reach-through provisions that result in the provider's having an exclusive license or outright ownership of discoveries made using the tool. Furthermore, any agreement by recipients of federal funding to assign rights to future discoveries conflicts with statutory requirements of the Bayh-Dole Act, which is the basis for nonprofit and business ownership of inventions made with federally funded research 4 .