Licensing agreements cover a large number of known situations. For example, a retailer could enter into an agreement with a professional sports team for the development, manufacture and sale of goods bearing the sports team logo. Or a small manufacturer could concede a production technology owning a larger company to gain a competitive advantage rather than investing the time and money to develop its own technology. Or a greeting card company can agree with a movie distributor to create a series of greeting cards that carry the image of a popular animated character. A licence is granted by one party to another party as part of an agreement between these parties. In the case of a government-issued licence, the licence is obtained by application. In the case of a private party, it is a particular contract, usually in writing (for example. B a lease or other contract). The simplest definition is “a licence is a promise not to file a complaint” because, with the exception of a marriage license (which grants only official recognition of the relationship between the two persons), a licence of the licensed party allows either to engage in illegal and criminal activity without the licence (p.B. fishing, driving a car or operating a radio or television channel) , to do something that would violate the rights of the licensing company (for example. B make copies of a copyrighted work) that could be sued without the license, the conceded, civil, criminal or both. Many form contracts are only included in digital form and are presented to a user only as a click-through that the user must “accept.” Since the user may only see the agreement after the purchase of the software, these documents may be liability contracts. Check the rules of the state.
Depending on the type of product sold and to whom it is sold, there may be restrictions for the licensee. For example, some products (such as weapons) may not be sold in certain U.S. countries or states. The DMCA specifically provides for reverse software engineering for interoperability purposes, so there has been some controversy over whether contractual software licensing clauses restrict this situation. The 8th Davidson – Associates v. Jung[12] found that such clauses are enforceable after the decision of the Federal Circuit of Baystate v. Bowers. [13] You can authorize the right to manufacture a product from a patent you own or to give someone the right to use one of your business secrets, as a process developed by your company. Because of the legal basis they have to cover, some licensing agreements are quite lengthy and documents complex.
But most of these agreements cover the same fundamentals. These include the scope of the agreement, including restrictions on exclusivity or territories; financial aspects, such as necessary advances, royalties and royalty calculations; Guarantees for minimum sales Calendars with “on-the-market” dates, contract duration and renewal options; the lessor`s rights to quality monitoring and control, including procedures to follow; Minimum inventories that need to be maintained and returns and allowances. A licensee may authorize a licensee to perform activities that are otherwise within the product, offer or import a patented product, or practice a patented process. [7] The validity of a patent license may be a “fixed” term (i.e. indicated), for example. B 5 years, or for the life of the patent (i.e. until the patent expires). A patent is, by nature, territorially limited; it extends only to activities within the borders of the country that issues the patent. A patent license therefore does not require a territorial definition.
Copyright licenses include the right to reproduce and sell copyrighted property, including derivative works (works based on the original work). The right to perform the work to the public may be permitted.
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