Intellectual property licensing

Intellectual property licensing

Intellectual property licensing agreement is a partnership between intellectual property rights owner (licensor) and another who is authorized to use such rights (license) in exchange for an agreed payment with terms and condition. Then the licensee has the rights for the respective Intellectual Property assets for a period of time given by the licensor.

License is the certificate that proves one has been granted authority to do something under governmental license. Licensees' mean who has the license to market the product without the infringement fear of the licensor. Licensor means a person who gives another a license, particularly a private party doing so, such as a business giving someone a license to sell its product. A variety of Intellectual property licensing agreement which is classified broadly, it includes technology licensing agreement, trademark licensing agreement, and copyright licensing agreement etc. 

An Intellectual Property asset includes patents, trademark, copyright, Industrial Design, Integrated Circuits and Geographical Indication. The license is limited to the territory level. When a license is given to India then it is applicable only for India and it won't allow licensor/licensee to sale or intellectual property assets protection is not applicable to the US.

Patent Intellectual Property licensing means where a license is given to the private/second/third party to use the patented invention with an agreement. The benefit of License is to increase the market level of the both licensee and licensors. In related to software EUCLA means end –user license agreement, which means the user, may install the software on a limited number of computers.

In patent law, Compulsory license is a license given by the central government to those interested person for working the patented inventions. At any time after the expiration of three years from the date of grant of patent, any interested person may make an application to the controller for the grant of compulsory license on patent due to the following reasons

• The reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the patent have not been satisfied.
• Patented invention has not been available at reasonable price.
• Patented invention has not been worked in the territory of India. 

If the interested applicant doesn't use the compulsory license properly for working the patented invention within two years, then the compulsory license is revoked and given to another interested person. 

Intellectual property Trademark licensing is an agreement/ grant given between licensor and licensee to distribute the products under a trademark. With the help of license, the licensee may use the trademark without fear of a claim of trademark infringement by a licensor.

Cross license agreement is a contract between two or more parties where each party grants right/license of intellectual property assets to other party. It means that not only licensor including licensee has the rights to grant license to third party.  Thus by cross licensing each party maintains their freedom to bring the commercial to product to market. For example a literary work and an anthology that includes that literary work may be cross licensed between two publishers. 

Intellectual property licensing is an effective tool for achieving business goals. It will be active within a period of intellectual property assets and after the expiration of time period then it can be used by the public without any fear/permission.