Patents & Inventions Haven, LLC : Your Source for Patents, Inventions, Trademarks and Copyrights

Licensing

Patent, Trademark or Copyright ownership rights may be transferred as licenses or assignments.

The first thing you should decide is whether you want to reserve for yourself certain rights. For Instance, you may want to assign all of your rights to the investor or you may want to grant a license allowing the investor to use your ownership rights for a limited period.

What is the difference between an Exclusive license and a Non-exclusive license?
The exclusive license gives the licensed party the right to use the Patent, Trademark or Copyright exclusively to the exclusion of others.

Exclusive license holders of a patent may bring law suits against patent infringers. A holder of a non-exclusive license has limited rights to the Patent, Trademark or Copyright ownership rights.

What is a Territorial Grant?
A Territorial Grant commonly referred as a "Grant", is a right to make, sell and use a Patent within a confined geographical area this form of transfer of Patent is rare.

Which form of transfer of ownership rights of Patent, Trademark, or Copyright is best?
The best form of transfer of ownership rights for a Patent, Trademark, or Copyright depends on what is desired. For instance, exclusive licenses can be tied to the licensees output or sales. In other cases an outright sum of money for the invention might be the desired option.

For more information please contact us.

When can I assign my Invention?
When an Inventor assigns the entire right, title and interest of a Patent to another person ( assignee), that person and not the Inventor is the complete owner of a patent.

Licensing an invention will grant the licensee less than a complete patent.

A valid legal assignment of an invention is made only after the Invention has been completed. Some assignments may include present and future Patent rights of an invention in a given field from a particular inventor.

What should an Inventor consider when licensing an invention to another party?
The best way to find the factors to consider before signing a license agreement is to utilize qualified professionals. Some of the factors to consider would be the following.

The duration of the license agreement.
Exact Patent rights being granted such as right to make or offer to sell. A Patent license may be limited to only one or two rights of the owner's Patent rights.
Future improvements within a specified time.
Rate of royalty. Several methods of royalty rates are available such as fixed amount of money per year, or percentage based on sales or production. Royalties are generally fixed or on a sliding scale.
Right to sublicense. This the right for the licensed party to sublicense to others the Patent rights granted.
Territory covered by license. This may be based on number of states or countries.
Method of paying the Inventor, procedures for inspecting books, etc.
Many other factors must also be considered. Please contact us for more information.

Patentability Search The patentability search is a search of relevant literature expired patents, current patents, scientific documents and other related prior art to determine if the invention is non-obvious or novel.

Note: Patent Searches although done professionally are not infallible, since there is no way to search patent applications that are pending, foreign or non-patent or exotic references may not be uncovered by the search. Furthermore, recent Patents may not be available to the public at the time of patent search.

Top of Page || Home || Patents || Trademarks & Servicemarks || Copyrights || Marketing || Licensing || Contact || Links