Jerry McGinn: DOD Should Address Challenges in Intellectual Property, Ensure Security

Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University’s School of Business and a 2021 Wash100 Award winner, said the Department of Defense should continue its focus on intellectual property and security and address challenges related to those two factors to safeguard and further advance innovation.

He told Government Matters in an interview published Wednesday that IP is the “lifeblood of innovation” and matters a lot for DOD. He highlighted the need to ensure security to protect the sources of innovation from being attacked.

McGinn explained how access to defense innovation could be hindered if the government seeks unlimited rights for a particular technology and vendors may be reluctant to give in to that request.

“In the case of security, if a program is being conducted in robotics, you’ve got government personnel, university personnel and industry personnel working on it and the propriety information is compromised by a cyberattack or some of kind of espionage and that will end up … reducing the military advantage for the United States,” he added.

McGinn said he recommends that government and industry find ways to work together by looking for “mutually beneficial licensing rights” and advancing transparency.

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