IP Licensing

Home / Services / IP Licensing
All services
IP in Corporate Transactions

IP licensing turns your patents, trademarks, copyrights, and technology into revenue or access, and we draft and negotiate the license terms that make those deals pay off and hold up.

A license is how intellectual property earns its keep without changing hands. Whether you're licensing out a patent portfolio for royalties or licensing in technology you need to ship, the terms decide whether the deal helps you or boxes you in. We structure, draft, and negotiate IP licenses across patents, trademarks, copyrights, software, and know-how, on both sides of the table.

Getting The Scope Right

Every license lives or dies on its grant clause. We draft terms that pin down scope, exclusivity, territory, field of use, sublicensing rights, and duration so both sides know exactly what was bought and sold. We tailor the structure to the asset and the business model, because a SaaS code license, a trademark co-branding deal, and a patent cross-license each need different mechanics to work.

Negotiating Royalties And Payment

Money terms are where good licenses get won or lost. We negotiate royalty rates, upfront fees, minimum guarantees, milestone payments, and the reporting and audit rights that keep payments honest. We also handle the details that trip people up later, including how royalties are calculated on bundled products, currency and withholding tax treatment, and what counts toward the royalty base, so the numbers you agreed to are the numbers you actually receive.

Licensing Out Your IP

When you own the IP, licensing is a way to monetize assets you might never commercialize yourself. We help you build outbound licensing programs, set up template agreements that scale across many licensees, and protect your rights with quality control, field restrictions, and termination triggers. The goal is steady revenue from your portfolio without giving away leverage or weakening the underlying IP for your own use.

Licensing In What You Need

When you need someone else's IP, the risk is paying for rights that turn out to be too narrow or too shaky. We negotiate inbound licenses that actually cover your intended use, back them with sensible warranties and indemnities, and avoid traps like sudden termination, audit overreach, or restrictions that block your product roadmap. You walk away with the rights you need on terms you can build a business on.

Frequently asked questions

Common structures are running royalties as a percentage of sales, a lump sum, milestone payments, or some combination. The right one depends on the asset, what is standard in your industry, and each side's leverage. Early-stage technology, for example, often uses milestones so payment tracks progress rather than promises.

An exclusive license gives the licensee sole rights within a defined scope, and depending on the wording it can lock out even you as the owner from that field. Because exclusivity is so powerful, defining the scope by territory, field of use, and time is critical. Loose scope language is where exclusive deals go wrong.

Whoever your agreement says. Spell out whether improvements developed during the term belong to the licensor, the licensee, or are shared, and whether each side gets a grant-back to use the other's improvements. Leaving this silent is a common source of later fights.

Define what triggers termination, how long each side has to cure a breach, what happens to any sublicenses, and what rights survive afterward. A sell-off period, for instance, lets the licensee clear existing inventory after the deal ends. Plan the exit when relations are good, not when they have soured.

Licensors typically warrant that they own the IP and have authority to license it, and licensees often push for a non-infringement warranty too. How broad those warranties are, and what the remedy is if one is breached, gets negotiated hard. The more the licensor warrants, the more risk they take on.

Yes, by negotiating audit rights into the license, which most licensors insist on. Define the audit scope, how often it can happen, what notice is required, and who pays for it, often the licensee if the audit uncovers a meaningful underpayment. Without these terms, verifying royalties is difficult.

Document products

Related document products

Order attorney-drafted documents related to this service.

Browse all products

Let's talk about your ip licensing needs.

Get in touch