An example of a restaurant license agreement would be if a McDonald`s franchisee has a licensing agreement with McDonald`s Corporation that allows them to use the company`s branding and marketing materials. And toy manufacturers regularly sign licensing agreements with movie studios, giving them legal authority to produce figurines based on the popular similarities of movie characters. Those entering into a licensing agreement should consult a lawyer as there are complexities that are difficult to grasp for those who do not have a thorough understanding of intellectual property law. A cross-licensing agreement is a contract between two or more parties in which each party grants the other parties rights to their intellectual property. A license agreement is a written agreement between two parties in which one owner allows another party to use that property under a certain set of parameters. A license agreement or license agreement typically includes a licensor and a licensee. For example, Microsoft and JVC entered into a mutual licensing agreement in January 2008. [3] Each party is therefore in a position to put into practice the inventions covered by the patents contained in the agreement. [4] This benefits competition by giving everyone more freedom to design products that fall under each other`s patents without causing patent infringement lawsuits. License agreements describe the terms under which one party may use another party`s property.
While the properties in question may include a variety of elements, including real estate and personal effects, licensing agreements are most often used for intellectual property such as patents and trademarks, as well as copyrights for written materials and visual arts. In patent law, a reciprocal licensing agreement is an agreement under which two or more parties grant each other a license to use the subject matter claimed in one or more of the patents each holds. [1] As a general rule, this type of agreement takes place between two parties to avoid a dispute or resolve an infringement dispute. [2] Very often, patents held by each party cover various essential aspects of a particular commercial product. Through mutual licensing, each party retains its freedom to place the commercial product on the market. The term “cross-licensing” implies that neither party pays financial royalties to the other party, although this may be the case. One of the limitations of cross-licensing is that it is inefficient vis-à-vis patent holding companies. The main activity of a patent holding company is to license patents for a financial royalty. Therefore, they do not need rights to exercise the patents of other companies. These companies are often pejoratively referred to as patent trolls. The economic literature has shown that capital-intensive companies are more likely to enter into a cross-licensing agreement.
[7] In addition to detailing all parties involved, license agreements detail how parties authorized to use real property, including the following parameters: License agreements are often used for the commercialization of technologies. Parties entering into cross-licensing agreements must be careful not to violate antitrust laws and regulations. This can easily become a complex issue concerning (as far as the European Union is concerned) Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), former Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty (abuse of a dominant position, etc.), licensing directives, cartels, etc. The bargaining power of both parties to a licensing agreement often depends on the type of product. For example, a film studio that licenses the likeness of a popular superhero to an action figure creator could have significant bargaining power in this negotiation, as the manufacturer is likely to benefit enormously from such an agreement. The film studio therefore has the leverage to take its business elsewhere if the manufacturer is cold on its feet. Other non-patented intellectual property rights, such as copyrights and trademarks, may also be cross-licensed. For example, a literary work and an anthology containing that literary work may be mutually licensed between two publishers. A cross-license for computer software may include a combination of patents, copyrights, and trademark licenses.
Examples of licensing can be found in many different industries. An example of a license agreement is an agreement between software copyright holders and a company that allows them to use the computer software for their day-to-day business operations. Some companies file patent applications primarily to be able to license the resulting patents to each other, rather than trying to prevent a competitor from bringing a product to market. [5] In the early 1990s, for example, Taiwanese manufacturers of original designs such as Hon Hai rapidly increased their patent applications after their U.S. competitors filed patent infringement lawsuits against them. [6] They used the patents for mutual licenses […].
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