Licensing your assets can be a business opportunity
Consider whether you are able to license your intangible assets and rights to others or if you need to license rights from someone else to develop your product or service.
Questions such as these should be answered in a strategy for intangible assets:
- What rights are licensed? Is it a patent, trademark, design protection or copyright? How long is the right valid?
- What possible benefits would a licensing bring to your business?
- If you are the licensor, review the revenue you receive by licensing and comparing it with the value of your rights.
- How much are your rights worth? Understanding the value of rights will be valuable in future negotiations.
- How will the rights be used? Will they be used in a specific sector? Will the holder be able to license the rights to other sectors?
- What are the licensing terms? Payment model? Durations? Are there termination clauses?
- What are the risks and how can they be reduced?
- Should infringement issues be the responsibility of the licensor or licensee?
Evaluating pros and cons
A right held by someone else may prevent you from being able to develop your own business in a particular direction. In this case it may be helpful to consider whether you should try to license this right.
Before you enter into a license agreement, you should of course take into account the pros and cons and other ways of getting around. The advantage of a license is that the obstacle that used to be in the way disappears and you can continue your business in a certain direction without worrying about infringement. Disadvantages are the costs that are incurred and that you to some extent end up in a positions where you are dependent on the licensor. You should therefore continually evaluate whether licensing is worth its price.
If the roles are reversed and you are a licensor, you can evaluate the return on your licenses related to the value of the rights. Does the license fees correspond to the value of the rights?