Court of Federal Claims Confirms ‘Technical Data’ Grants No General Right of Access to Contractor Information
Blank Rome LLP attorneys Samarth Barot and Luke Meier discuss a U.S. Court of Federal Claims decision confirming the technical information a contractor is permitted to keep confidential from the government.
In an important decision for preserving contractor data rights, the Court of Federal Claims recently confirmed that "technical data" has a limited scope and, per the DFARS, includes only information "of a scientific or technical nature."
Pursuant to DFARS 252.227-7013, if any data is identified as "technical data" the Government may be able to assert licensing rights in a contractor's noncommercial technical data. In contrast, for any data identified as proprietary non-technical data, the Government cannot assert any licensing rights in the proprietary non-technical data.
This case resolved whether a contractor can treat vendor list information as proprietary, non-technical data. In Raytheon, Raytheon was required to provide vendor lists to the Army on a quarterly basis. These vendor lists included information about suppliers Raytheon used to purchase its missile system parts from. Raytheon marked these vendor lists with a marking that explained that the information contained therein was proprietary.
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"Court of Federal Claims Confirms ‘Technical Data’ Grants No General Right of Access to Contractor Information," by Samarth Barot and Luke W. Meier was published on August 16, 2022, in Westlaw Today, a Thomson Reuters publication.
This article was first published in Blank Rome's Government Contracts Navigator blog.