Entirely coincidentally with the fact today’s earlier DAU LOG Blog post happened to be on the topic of Intellectual Property requirements outlined in the new DoD Instruction 5000.91 Product Support Management for the Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF) policy, wanted to let the community know that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) yesterday issued a new report on this important topic entitled “GAO-22-104752 Defense Acquisitions: DOD Should Take Additional Actions to Improve How It Approaches Intellectual Property”

According to the GAO, “the Department of Defense uses intellectual property (IP) to operate and maintain its weapons systems. IP includes computer software, technical data, user manuals, and more. Over the past 3 decades, we reported that insufficient IP can reduce mission readiness and lead to surging costs. DOD is taking steps to improve how it acquires and licenses IP, in part by employing a group of IP experts and identifying specific responsibilities for organizations within the department. We made 4 recommendations, including that DOD determine the collaboration, staffing, and resources needed to carry out its proposed approach for its group of IP experts.”