Protecting Our Nation’s Data: Cybersecurity Compliance for Government Contractors
Intellectual Property In Department of Defense Contracting
Additional Compensation from the Government: A Brief Comparison of REAs and Claims
Webinar: Trademarks and Government Contracting
Buy American: What Government Contractors Need to Know
Federal Contracting Overseas: Insider Tips for Ensuring Compliance with Host Country Laws
Navigating the FAR/DFARS: The Most Confusing and Little Known Clauses
Government Contracts Cyber Café: 2019 Wrap Up and Privacy, CMMC, and GRC in 2020
The Government Contracts Cyber Café: Recent Developments Update
Government Contracts Cyber Café Series: An Inside Look at DFARS Compliance Data
Government Contracts Cyber Café - Crisis Management: Beyond Compliance
Federal Cybersecurity Requirements
PilieroMazza recently highlighted a Department of Defense (DOD) memo requiring DOD Components to adopt the Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) as the preferred acquisition method for business and weapon system programs. The...more
After years of anticipation, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council has announced the arrival of its proposed rule to enhance the safeguarding of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in federal contracts (the...more
On December 23, 2024, President Biden signed the Source Code Harmonization and Reuse in Information Technology Act (“SHARE IT Act” or “the Act”), which provides a formal mechanism for federal agencies to store and share...more
To kick off the New Year (and as is now tradition, since we put out a similar Recap & Forecast last year), Sheppard Mullin’s Governmental Practice Cybersecurity & Data Protection Team has prepared a cybersecurity-focused 2024...more
Part of the Biden Administration’s push to enhance U.S. cybersecurity capabilities has focused on imposing new requirements on government contractors. The 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy suggested, for example, that...more
The United States Department of Defense’s (DoD) supplement to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (DFARS) requires the DoD to adopt a Modular Open System Approach (MOSA), which is a technical and business strategy for open and...more
WHAT: As we previously reported here, on October 3, 2023, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FAR Council) proposed a pair of major cybersecurity rules intended to implement key parts of President Biden’s May 2021...more
The OMB has issued memorandum M-22-18 with new security requirements (the "Rules") requiring federal agencies to ensure that all third-party software they use complies with secure software development standards and guidance...more
While the DoD charts a path forward on CMMC, the USG is emphasizing the need to comply with existing cyber obligations in government contracts and taking steps to enforce compliance with those obligations. The June 16 Memo...more
When trade secrets and other intellectual property disputes arise involving federal government contractors, defendants often assert that the alleged trade secret or intellectual property belongs to the government as part of...more
President Biden recently signed an executive order, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” signaling a significant increase in regulatory oversight of government contractors’ cybersecurity programs. This action came on the...more
The President’s new Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity includes wide-ranging measures intended to strengthen security standards for the federal government and federal government contractors in response to...more
On May 12, 2021, President Biden signed a sweeping Executive Order (EO) to protect federal government networks and software supply chains against increasing threats of attacks from malicious cyber actors, setting the stage...more
Both houses of Congress now have voted to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. Although the threat of a presidential veto still hangs over the NDAA, we highlight below a few of the...more
Earlier this month, it was reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) discovered a serious security flaw in Microsoft Windows 10 cryptographic functionality, CVE-2020-0601.That security flaw could render trust...more
Concluding our blog series on open-source software in the government market, it is time to turn to the darker side of things. We already discussed the “good” of open-source software for government buyers, and we walked...more
In the first post of this series, we discussed “the good” of open-source software and why federal buyers should find it attractive. However, when it comes to the federal government accepting open-source code with open arms,...more
In a decision published last week, Appeals of CiyaSoft Corp., ASBCA Nos. 59519, 59913, the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA) held for the first time that the Government may be bound by the terms of a commercial...more
On December 12, 2017, President Trump signed the $700 billion 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) into law. Following negotiations between the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the NDAA includes new...more
Having just presented on data rights issues to a number of government contracting officers and procurement professionals, as well as private sector contract management personnel, during the 2017 National Contract Management...more
In the IT sector, it is common for contractors with relationships to various federal agencies to have top-tier talent in-house to provide high quality IT services. Some vendors even have programmers and software engineers...more
This article focuses on contractor licenses that grant “Restricted Rights” in “Noncommercial Software” to the federal Government under Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) 252.227-7014. DFARS...more
On August 8, 2016, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) promulgated an Open Source Software (“OSS”) policy via the Memorandum for the Heads of Departments and Agencies, M-16-21 (“Memorandum” or “M-16-21”). The...more
This article is the third installment in a series on Data Rights in Federal Contracts. We first wrote about what data rights were; then about technical data and how to protect it; and now we will discuss ownership, license...more
On June 16, 2016, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a proposed rule to implement Section 815 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. Industry and practitioners alike have awaited this proposal...more