India offers many forms of intellectual property licence

Businesses everywhere are seeking ways to exploit their intangible assets, licensing being one of them. For foreign companies interested in the Indian market, one of the simpler modes of having a presence in India is by licensing technology, patents, trade secrets, trademarks, designs and copyright to entities in India.

A “licence” in legal parlance is a permission given by the owner to use its property on certain terms and conditions. With an exclusive licence, the licensee has the right to use the property to the exclusion of others, while a non-exclusive licence permits others to be granted a licence to the same property.

Licensing helps entities boost revenue and profitability and derive value for an asset on which they have expended money, time and labour. While some entities create intellectual property and license it for commercial exploitation, others seek to benefit from intellectual property generated by others by obtaining a licence for commercialization. Licensing transactions are usually preceded by confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements and a due diligence exercise depending on nature of the intellectual property involved.

Kavita Mundkur Nigam is an associate at Krishna & Saurastri Associates.