The body of scientific and technical data and information (STI)1 in the public domain in the United States is
massive and has contributed broadly to the economic, social, and intellectual vibrancy of our nation. The “public
domain” can be defined in legal terms as sources and types of data and information whose uses are not restricted
by statutory intellectual property laws or by other legal regimes, and that are accordingly available to the public for
use without authorization. In recent years, however, there have been growing legal, economic, and technological
pressures that restrict the creation and availability of public-domain information—scientific and otherwise. It is
therefore important to review the role, value, and limits on public-domain STI.
New and revised laws have broadened, deepened, and lengthened the scope of intellectual property and neighboring
rights in data and information, while at the same time redefining and limiting the availability of specific types
of information in the public domain. National security concerns also constrain the scope of information that can be
made publicly available. Economic pressures on both government and university producers of scientific data
similarly have narrowed the scope of such information placed in the public domain, thus introducing access and use
restrictions on resources that were previously openly available to researchers, educators, and others. Finally, advances
in digital rights management technologies for enforcing proprietary rights in various information products
pose some of the greatest potential restrictions on the types of STI that should be accessible in the public domain