SBIR Solicitation Reminders

As the new year begins, be sure to update your calendars with Agency solicitation release and closing dates. New openings are on the horizon for NIH (mid-Jan.), DoD (Feb. 1), DOT (Feb. 15), EPA (Mar. 23). A complete listing of current and future openings is available at: http://www.zyn.com/sbir/scomp.htm.

Lessons Learned: Invention disclosure rules matter

By Kevin Flynn

As a patent attorney, I have spoken to SBIR grant recipients at conferences and I emphasized the need to follow the rules set out in the SBIR grant to report inventions to the granting Agency in the prescribed manner within the prescribed time. SBIR grant recipients could not imagine any government agency would use these contract clauses to rip away full title to a patent for the mere failure to submit reports about inventions in a particular quirky way. Besides, they have heard of other grant recipients that failed to report inventions in a timely manner and nothing bad resulted from a tardy disclosure.

That was then, this is now. Read more...

Case Study Q&A: Payroll
Reprinted with permission from PBC, Inc.

Can we pay overtime on a 1:1basis? Can we include reasonable overtime in budget proposals? Are employer-paid payroll taxes allowable costs? For answers to these questions, read more...

Tri-state SBIR Conference slated for Spring 2006

North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia are teaming up to offer a tri-state SBIR Conference in Roanoke, VA on March 21-23, 2006.

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NIH Training: Electronic Submission Webcast

By May 2007 all research grant applications for NIH will have to be submitted electronically through Grants.gov using the SF424 Research & Related (R&R) form set. This training session, geared toward the applicant community, will provide an overview of NIH's transition plans, the submission process and the new form set.

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SBIR Proposal Writing Basics: Smart schmoozing with DoD

By Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Anyone who has attended one of our SBIR/STTR workshops knows that we strongly encourage schmoozing with technical points of contact (TPOCs) and topic authors before submitting Phase 1 proposals to the Dept of Defense (DOD). Schmoozing here means taking time to better understand the topic (and the person behind it) before writing a proposal on a Phase 1 DOD topic, because the one page topic description in the solicitation probably does not contain all of the relevant information you need to submit a credible proposal.

Unfortunately, the opportunity to schmooze with DOD topic authors/TPOCs is in jeopardy. There is a strong possibility that DOD will either eliminate the "pre-release period" (the time between when the tentative topics are available in the solicitation and when DOD begins accepting proposals, the latter date generally being 30 days before the proposal deadline) or greatly shortening it. One reason is that DOD topic authors/TPOCs are apparently being inundated with silly schmoozing. The purpose of this article is to help you do smart schmoozing, with the hopes that it will help you and keep DOD from disallowing schmoozing during the "pre-release period.".

Online Proposal Training with Mark Henry

Starting Wednesday, January 18 from 1:00PM - 3:00 PM MDT and continuing FOUR additional Wednesdays, Mark Henry will be presenting his hands-on "Getting Ready to Write an SBIR/STTR Proposal'" class. This course can be taken online.

Learn more ...