The National Inventors Council (NIC) was a United States government organization established in 1940 as part of the Department of Commerce's Office of Technical Services (OTC).
[1] It was designed to serve as a clearinghouse for inventions with possible military and national defense uses, and to bring these to the attention of the U.S. armed forces.
[1] Most active during World War II, the NIC continued into the mid-1950s.
Its functions were transferred to the National Bureau of Standards when the Commerce Department abolished the OTC.
[1] In 1973, the NIC was transferred from the National Bureau of Standards to the private sector, where it was overseen by the Academy of Applied Science and the Franklin Pierce Law Center.