Standard Forms
Standard contracts, standard descriptions of procurement
items, non-disclosure agreements, proposal evaluation criteria checklists, or
standardized versions of all parts of the needed bid documents are included in
standard forms. Organizations that perform substantial amounts of procurement
can have many of these documents standardized. Buyer and seller organizations
performing intellectual property transactions ensure that non-disclosure
agreements are approved and accepted before disclosing any project specific
intellectual property information to other party.
Procurement Documents
These documents are used to seek proposals from perspective
sellers. A term such as proposal is generally used when other considerations,
such as technical skills or technical approach, are paramount and terms such as
bid, tender, or quotation is generally used when the seller selection decision
will be based on price (as when buying commercial or standard items). However,
the terms are often used interchangeably and care is taken not to make
unwarranted assumptions about the implications of the term used. Common names
for different types of procurement documents include invitation for bid,
request for proposal, request for quotation, tender notice, invitation for
negotiation, and contractor initial response.