Sub-licensing intellectual property rights


Produced in partnership with Jessica Stretch
Practice notes
In-house

Sub-licensing intellectual property rights


Produced in partnership with Jessica Stretch

Practice notes
In-house
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An IP owner may choose to license its IP to a third party. This can be an effective route to generating revenue while maintaining Ownership of valuable rights. The terms upon which the IP owner (licensor) grants rights to a licensee often include a clause determining if the licensee may, in turn, grant a sub-licence of the IP right(s) to a third party.

This Practice Note covers:

  1. •

    Right to sub-license—statutory position for patents, trade marks, copyright and designs

  2. •

    Why sub-license IP rights?—advantages and disadvantages

  3. •

    Sub-licensing—key terms and considerations

  4. •

    Checklist—key questions for drafting

For an introduction to IP licensing in general, see Practice Notes: Licensing Intellectual Property Rights, Exploiting intellectual property rights and Q&A: What are the key practical issues for a business to consider when exploiting its intellectual property rights? For more in-depth Practice Notes on licensing individual IP rights please see the relevant IP section below.

A note on terminology: in this Practice Note, references to the ‘head licence’ refer to the initial licence agreement between the licensor and licensee. References

Jessica Stretch
Jessica Stretch

Senior IP Counsel

Jessica is senior intellectual property lawyer with over 10 years of experience, advising on all aspects of trade marks, passing off, copyright, designs and domain names. Her practice covers contentious and non-contentious IP with a particular focus on brand clearance, anti-counterfeiting and digital media.

Jessica works as a freelance IP lawyer, primarily with technology companies including eBay and King. She began her career as an IP litigator at Osborne Clarke LLP and Kemp Little, followed by a professional support role at ÀÏ˾»úÎçÒ¹¸£Àû UK.

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Key definition:
Intellectual property definition
What does Intellectual property mean?

The trade secrets of an employer that are normally protected as registered trade marks, designs or copyright.

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