Key Takeaway: New federal initiatives are expanding access to private capital and deployment financing for nuclear energy technologies. Companies that fail to protect and clearly document their intellectual property may be less attractive to investors and less competitive when pursuing commercial opportunities.
On August 24, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (Memo) establishing the Small Business Investment Company-Energy (SBIC-E) Initiative. SBIC-E builds on SBA’s existing Small Business Investment Company Program, which has a $58 billion in combined portfolio value. SBIC-E combines DOE’s technical and commercialization expertise with SBA’s investment-fund licensing framework to help energy and critical-technology companies access private capital. The Memo states that the partnership is intended to “strengthen[] access to capital in the private sector to ensure America’s fossil fuels, nuclear, and electric power technology and infrastructure are the most advanced and plentiful in the world.”
On September 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the Affordable Rural Cooperative (ARC) Program, which will make $175 million available through loans and grants to eligible rural electric cooperatives pursuing nuclear energy and transmission-efficiency projects. Eligible uses include constructing or improving nuclear facilities and transmission lines, acquiring all or part of a nuclear facility, upgrading existing nuclear facilities, and purchasing nuclear energy through power purchase agreements. Letters of Interest may be submitted from October 19, 2026 to November 20, 2026. Cooperatives invited to proceed will then have 90 calendar days after receiving an invitation to submit a full application.
Together, these programs may support complementary stages of nuclear energy commercialization. SBIC-E is intended to expand private investment in small businesses developing priority energy technologies, while the ARC program will provide loans and grants to eligible rural electric cooperatives pursuing nuclear energy and transmission-efficiency projects.
These initiatives may increase competition at both the research-and-development and commercialization stages. Greater access to private capital may encourage new businesses to enter the nuclear energy market and allow existing businesses to accelerate development. At the deployment stage, ARC funding may increase the number of rural electric cooperatives evaluating nuclear facilities, transmission projects, and nuclear power purchase arrangements. Companies seeking to serve those cooperatives may therefore face increased competition for procurement and partnership opportunities.
As private capital and federal financing create new opportunities for nuclear energy technologies, investors and prospective customers may evaluate more than technical performance alone. For example, investors will likely consider whether a company owns and protects the intellectual property underlying its systems, whether the ownership and protection is clearly documented, and whether third-party rights could interfere with commercialization. Companies that develop a deliberate intellectual property strategy early may be better positioned to distinguish themselves during investment diligence and convert technological advances into commercial deployments.
Accordingly, energy companies should review their systems and technologies and categorize the associated intellectual property into two groups: (1) proprietary intellectual property that the company owns or is developing and should protect, and (2) intellectual property owned by third parties that may be incorporated into, licensed, or otherwise relevant to the company’s products and operations. Investors, lenders, and commercial partners may evaluate both categories when assessing commercialization risk.
Patent protection may be appropriate for proprietary technology that provides a competitive advantage and is susceptible to reverse engineering or independent discovery. Energy companies should evaluate whether inventions relating to reactor systems, fuel handling, grid-integration technologies, transmission equipment, monitoring platforms, control software, manufacturing processes, or other innovations warrant patent protection. The value of patent protection can be affected by public disclosures, incomplete assignments, and failures to satisfy applicable disclosure obligations before the Patent Office. Accordingly, companies should identify inventions early, implement procedures for timely patent filings before technical information is publicly disclosed, obtain appropriate assignments, and ensure that inventor declarations and known material prior art are timely submitted during patent prosecution.
Some innovations may be better protected as trade secrets. For example, manufacturing techniques, operational know-how, design parameters, software algorithms, data sets, testing methods, and other information that cannot be readily reverse engineered may derive substantial value from remaining confidential. To preserve trade-secret protection, companies should take reasonable measures to maintain confidentiality, including identifying confidential information, limiting access on a need-to-know basis, using appropriate confidentiality agreements, training personnel regarding confidentiality obligations, and implementing technical and administrative safeguards against unauthorized disclosure.
Energy companies should understand what rights are required to develop, manufacture, deploy, operate, and service their technologies. Companies may review license agreements, joint-development agreements, university-research agreements, software licenses, supplier contracts, and government-funding arrangements to confirm that the necessary rights have been obtained. Companies should also evaluate whether third-party patents could create barriers to commercialization before launching new products, integrating acquired technologies, entering a new market, or expanding product lines.
As access to capital and deployment funding increases, the companies best positioned to capitalize on those opportunities may be those that not only protect their own innovations but also understand and manage the intellectual-property rights of others that could affect commercialization.
Subscribe for News and Updates
