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User Agreements

A user agreement, which can be nonproprietary or proprietary, serves as the "master" agreement which establishes the general terms and conditions, including disposition of intellectual property, for work at any of ORNL’s user facilities. For use that will generate proprietary output or that will require any cost reimbursement, an additional project-specific document must also be executed in advance.

Sample Agreements

  • Non-Proprietary – appropriate when 1) All research will be non-proprietary research that advances the user’s area of interest, rather than toward producing a commercial end result (e.g., a marketable product); 2) the user intends to publish the research results in the open scientific literature; and 3) the user does not require a proprietary level of protection for any of the output. The user may use proprietary data or software in the performance of the project, as long as all the project output is non-proprietary.
  • Proprietary – requires full cost recovery because the user does not intend to disseminate the results of the research to the public.
  • Appendix A – a simple document executed in conjunction with a Proprietary User Agreement. It authorizes use of the specific User Facility or Facilities for a defined duration and serves as an advance-payment invoice.  Advance payment is required prior to initiation of work.
  • User Agreement for a Federal Agency - appropriate when the user organization is a federal agency. This specialized agreement does not include the Indemnity and Liability provisions, and it clarifies Intellectual Property ownership.
  • Non-proprietary – appropriate when the user organization is a federal laboratory, operated by a contractor. This specialized agreement does not include the Indemnity and Liability provisions, and it clarifies the Intellectual Property ownership.