BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 744
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   May 4, 2011

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

             AB 744 (John A. Perez) - As Introduced:  February 17, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                              Business and 
          Professions  Vote:                            6 - 0 

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:              

           SUMMARY  

          This bill establishes the Office of Intellectual Property (OIP) 
          within the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency, and 
          requires the office to:


          1)Develop a database to track specified information about 
            intellectual property (IP) generated by state employees and 
            state-funded research. 


          2)Establish guidelines, including specified elements, for state 
            agencies to use in administering their IP. 


          3)Develop an outreach campaign informing state agencies of their 
            rights and abilities concerning intellectual property. 


          4)Develop sample invention assignment agreements that state 
            agencies may use to secure rights to potentially patentable 
            items created by their employees using state resources. 


          5)Develop sample language for licenses or terms-of-use 
            agreements to limit others' use of state agencies' IP.


           FISCAL EFFECT  

          First-year GF costs in the range of $400,000 for the OIP to 








                                                                  AB 744
                                                                  Page  2

          develop guidelines, a data base, outreach campaign, and sample 
          language, and ongoing costs in the range of $300,000 assuming 
          three staff for the office.

           COMMENTS  

           1)Rationale  . This bill establishes the OIP to track state-funded 
            inventions and establish guidelines for administering IP. This 
            bill is in response to a report released by the State Auditor 
            in 2000 and two other reports that found that the state is 
            lacking in a system for tracking state-owned IP. According to 
            the author, the state's disjointed system costs the state 
            money.  He argues that as technology advances, state agencies 
            without sufficient knowledge of how to protect IP will become 
            increasingly vulnerable to unauthorized use and inability to 
            capitalize on reduced contracts costs or increasing revenue to 
            the state.  AB 744 is intended to set up the framework to 
            determine what IP the state owns and informs state agencies of 
            their rights and abilities to protect the state's IP.


           2)Related Legislation  . In 2007, AB 1456 (Mullin) would have 
            created the OIP for purposes of identifying and providing 
            policy guidance for state agency management of IP developed by 
            state employees or with state funds.  This bill was amended to 
            address an unrelated issue.


           Analysis Prepared by  :    Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916) 
          319-2081