IP LICENSING

Intellectual Property Licensing is an important issue facing all technology companies. Before entering into license agreements a number of issues need to be addressed, including invention ownership, obtaining and identifying licensable subject matter, and developing a licensing strategy. There are a number of important provisions that are included in most intellectual property license agreements. These provisions include definitions, the license grant, consideration, audit rights, confidentiality, warranties, indemnification, and limitation of liability. Special licensing considerations exist relative to each type of intellectual property, and when the other party is a foreign company or a university.

As a result of investment in innovation, companies have created a large, diverse portfolio of intellectual property (IP) that is now available for licensing. This portfolio includes source code, schemas, protocols, and documentation as well as associated copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. There policy is to license this IP under commercially reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.

Licensing IP is a straightforward process and usually involves only a few steps.

Example:- Microsoft licenses patents, copyrights, brands and various types of technical know-how, including file formats, algorithms, source code, schemas, trademarks, feature-level components, and stand-alone applications.