Licensing
Related Practices
Given the growing importance of intellectual property in today’s business community, transactions involving intellectual property are becoming more and more common. For many businesses, transfers of rights to intellectual property have become important sources of revenue.
Intellectual property may be transferred like most other types of property. The most common types of transfers are licenses and assignments. Both licenses and assignments can be very flexible in the intellectual property context and may be tailored to meet the exact needs of the parties.
A licensing agreement typically gives the licensee a limited right to use certain intellectual property subject to the terms of the license. Because licenses are purely contractual relationships, it is vitally important that both parties to the transaction have a full understanding of the exact terms of the license.
Unlike a license, an assignment constitutes a complete transfer of certain defined rights in the intellectual property to an assignee. While assignments are usually conceptually simpler than licenses, it is still important to understand the scope of the intellectual property being transferred.
Woods Rogers PLC has assisted many clients in negotiating and drafting license and assignment agreements, and our attorneys are available to apply their considerable experience and familiarity with license and assignments to the benefit of clients seeking to enter into or enforce these agreements.