The treatment of intellectual property relating to a project needs to be reviewed in the context of each project and in consultation with the government project team's legal advisors. As a general rule, government should seek to acquire a royalty-free transferable licence to the intellectual property for the life of the service requirement. In some cases, however, it is appropriate for government to seek ownership of the project intellectual property.
The value of the intellectual property is typically reflected in the payments which government agrees to make. government must ensure that it is able to access all the tools required to deliver the service over the life of the contract should it need to do so.
In this regard, if it is necessary to replace the private party under the contract, the new provider must be able to access any intellectual property required to deliver the required outputs without any cost penalty to government.