Industrial property rights may be the object of a license to third parties, usually for a consideration in the form of royalties, lump-sum, fees, or combinations thereof. For the licensor, the license constitutes a source of income; for the licensee, the license represents a way to obtain access to a technology or a trademark, which would otherwise be precluded, or would require considerable effort and risk to implement alternative solutions.
However, achieving these objectives requires careful negotiation and definition of the parties’ interests. Industrial property rights can also be the object of a transfer to third parties, as a rule, for a consideration. While in the case of a license, the licensor grants the right to the licensee in use for a fixed period of time, retaining the ownership, in the case of an assignment, the assignor transfers the right to the assignee, definitively depriving himself of the ownership.
For both transfers and licenses of industrial property rights, it is generally advisable, especially for the assignee and the licensee, to carry out a due diligence so as to verify the ownership, validity and scope of the rights to be acquired, and to plan in advance a strategy for the execution of the relevant transcription practices according to the formalities provided for in the various jurisdictions concerned.
