This article is written by Jayanti Banerjee, pursuing Certificate Course in Introduction to Legal Drafting: Contracts, Petitions, Opinions & Articles from LawSikho. The article has been edited by Zigishu Singh (Associate, LawSikho) and Smriti Katiyar (Associate, LawSikho).
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In this Global Fifth Industrial Revolution age, a new kind of right has come to dominate other aspects of business, i.e. a right to intellectual property. Now the question arises: What is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property (IP) is nothing but the creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.
If we speak in terms of law, then the intellectual rights of a person are protected by patents, copyright and trademarks, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create.
One of the IPs is a patent. A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing something, any invention, any new innovative way of doing a particular thing, etc.
It is important to get the patents registered because it can help safeguard your invention, therefore registering for a patent and drafting an agreement becomes an essential element for safeguarding your own interest. It can protect any product, design or process that meets certain specifications according to its originality, practicality, suitability, and utility. In most cases, a patent can protect an invention for up to 20 years. In this article, we are going to learn about how we can draft an agreement for assigning a patent.
A patent is an ownership right granted for an invention. A patent assignment is an agreement where an inventor transfers all the rights or interests in the patent to another party or business. It is a legal process to transfer ownership from the inventor to a particular business or entity. In layman language, A license is permission granted to use another’s property. An owner of intellectual property can give another person the right to make, use or sell property or items protected by this intellectual property by means of a contractual license.
A patent contract is an agreement between two or more parties including the terms and conditions of such patent licensing.
A license can be applied to any type of IP- trademark, patent, copyright and design, etc.
A patent assignment is an agreement where the assignor transfers the patent rights to the assignee. It is a process of how to patent an idea or transfer his or her interest to an assignee, and enforce the patent. The assignee receives the original owner’s interest and rights to intellectual property. He can sue others for making and selling the invention or design.
Patent licensing is an act of the third party by selling and using the patented patent rights to extricate its benefits. The owner of the patent gives license to a third party to use, sell and take advantage of its patented invention for a price previously negotiated as royalties.
A patent is important because it helps to safeguard your invention. It protects any product design that meets a certain identification according to its originality, practicality, suitability, and utility. The patent owner has the right to stop others from commercially utilizing the patented invention. A patent contract can protect an invention for 20 years. This time period starts as you file a patent application. Patent protection means that the invention cannot be commercially made, used, imported and sold by others without the patent owner’s consent. Only the owner of a patent has the complete right to utilize its value to the exclusion of all other parties. Therefore, protecting ownership of a patent and its accompanying rights can be very important to a company. A patent license agreement typically gives an assignee exclusive right to manufacture, sell, and use a patented invention, subject to terms and conditions. A patent license agreement will also define the number of royalties the assignee owes the assignor.
1. License clause,
2. Payment clause,
3. Indemnity clause,
5. Termination clause,
6. Representations and warranties of the licensor,
