What is a Licensing Agreement?

The term license implies to allow by grant of authority. Therefore, a licensing agreement is a contract between two parties – namely the licensor and the licensee. It is normally a written contract where the property owner allows the licensee to use his or her property for a particular time frame. The licensor is usually given some money to serve as consideration by virtue of allowing his property to be accessed. Agreements regarding licensing are normally signed so as to secure those properties that are not tangible for instance patents, copyrights, trademarks to safeguard technological innovations, company names, logos amongst others. In the case of extreme licensing agreement, the licensor gives the licensee the leeway to manufacture and sell products, utilize their brand name or make use of the licensor’s patented technological know-how.

How Does a License Agreement Work?

Business assets are the ones that are mostly licensed. All types of business assets can be licensed although licensing mostly entails intellectual property such as copyrights, patents, and trademarks. Digital assets such as trademarks and apps are usually licensed.

• Copyright licenses-entails the right to replicate the production and selling of the copyrighted commodity and derivative works. The right to do the work in public may also be licensed.
• Patent licenses- include the privilege to manufacture, sell, utilize, give out and sell overseas the patented commodity.
• Trademark licenses- this entails the privilege to utilize the trademark on particular objects in certain ways.
• Trade secret-this includes the privilege to make use of the trade secret in certain ways, a particular place and in specific procedures.

When coming up with the licensing contract, one should get a legal practitioner who is well conversant with licensing agreements. These consensuses tend to be complex and particular in nature. Utilizing internet sources is never the appropriate method to use when developing such agreements. A good number of advocates understand how to develop universal or general contract unfortunately, they may not have the knowledge on how to derive a licensing agreement. It may be advisable, to begin with an intellectual property attorney.