Re: US Army contract language William Sharp 24 Apr 2001 15:55 EST

Hi all,

I just wanted to follow up on the message I posted several days ago (copied
below) regarding some US Army contract language we had encountered.  Since
several of you were good enough to follow up and provide me with lots of
good information and advice, I wanted to let you know what I had found out:

As several of you suspected, the clause in question (52.7520) was a
Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) "contribution" to the contract
and was not DFAR as I had thought. (An Army CO had referred to it as "a FAR
clause" in one of our early telephone conversations and I had taken him
literally.)  So please let me correct my misstatement that there is
supposedly a FAR clause out there somewhere with that number and title!

The Army CO claimed that all kinds of public universities have been
accepting this clause without difficulty, but I have not yet been able to
confirm that with any of the universities he named.  And those universities
that have responded to my queries indicated that if they had indeed
accepted it (and they're still checking), it was an oversight on their
part--they definitely didn't want any part of it!

The good news is that, with the help of a program officer on the Army side,
we were (finally!) able to negotiate this clause out and have substituted
some mutually acceptable language.

Thanks again for all the great suggestions and fact checking!  What a
wonderfully useful and supportive list this is!

Bill Sharp
Contracts Officer
The University of Kansas
and The University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc.
(785) 864-7430
xxxxxx@ukans.edu

*****************************************************************************
William Sharp wrote:

> For those on this list who have experience contracting with the Army, we've
> run into a FAR clause on a proposed contract that is causing us some
> problems.  Have any of you dealt with contracts which included
>
> FAR 52.7520  RELEASE OF INFORMATION MATERIAL TO THE PUBLIC BY PUBLICATION
> OR OTHER MEANS OF DISSEMINATION AND MARKING OF TECHNICAL REPORTS
> POTENTIALLY DISCLOSING INVENTIONS (Sep/1997)?
>
> The text of the clause was included in the particular contract we are
> working with, so we know what the clause actually states (i.e., it was not
> just incorporated by reference).  However, I have not been able to find it
> anywhere else on the Web and it has not popped up in any other Army
> contracts we have had.  The Army contracting officer we are negotiating
> with has indicated that they have used this clause with numerous other
> public universities.  So if you're at a public university and you've
> encountered this clause I would very much like to compare notes with you on
> the publication implications of the clause and to learn whether or not your
> institution was willing to accept it.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bill Sharp
> Contracts Officer
> The University of Kansas and the
> University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc.
> (785) 864-7430
> xxxxxx@ku.edu
>

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