Licensing Law

Articles written by attorneys and experts worldwide discussing legal aspects related to Intellectual Property including: copyright, domain names, licensing law, patents, trade secrets and trademark.

The Intellectual Property Committee focuses on antitrust issues that arise from the acquisition, licensing, and enforcement of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property, as well as developments in patent, copyright, and intellectual property law from the standpoint of competition policy. Although we focus primarily on antitrust issues in the United States, the globalization of both antitrust law and intellectual property rights has led the Committee to expand its geographic horizons, focusing on policy and counseling challenges that arise throughout the world.

In the case of any work other than a work made for hire, the exclusive or nonexclusive grant of a transfer or license of copyright or of any right under a copyright, executed by the author on or after January 1, 1978, otherwise than by will, is subject to termination under certain conditions.

One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright law (title 17, U. S. Code). One of the more important limitations is the doctrine of “fair use.” The doctrine of fair use has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years and has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law.

H.R. 768 attacks the heart of the problems surrounding the satellite compulsory copyright license. Specifically, by creating a new, permanent license for the retransmission of local network signals by satellite to subscribers who reside in the local markets of those signals, the bill protects the integrity of the exclusivity rights of copyright owners/licensors and local broadcasters while affording satellite carriers a means of providing network service to all their subscribers.

The Fairness in Music Licensing Act increased the number of bars and restaurants that were exempted from needing a public performance license to play music or television during business hours.

The Licensing Division in the Copyright Office administers the compulsory and statutory licenses in the Copyright Act (title 17 of the U.S. Code). The division collects royalty fees from cable operators for retransmitting television and radio broadcasts (section 111), from satellite carriers for retransmitting “superstation” and network signals (section 119), and from importers or manufacturers for distributing digital audio recording products.

No Federal agency shall grant any license under a patent or patent application on a federally owned invention unless the person requesting the license has supplied the agency with a plan for development and/or marketing of the invention, except that any such plan may be treated by the Federal agency as commercial and financial information obtained from a person and privileged and confidential and not subject to disclosure under section 552 of title 5 of the United States Code.

A patent is personal property and may be sold to others or mortgaged; it may be bequeathed by a will, and it may pass to the heirs of a deceased patentee. The patent law provides for the transfer or sale of a patent, or of an application for patent, by an instrument in writing. Such an instrument is referred to as an assignment and may transfer the entire interest in the patent. The assignee, when the patent is assigned to him or her, becomes the owner of the patent and has the same rights that the original patentee had.

Founded in 1897, AIPLA is a national bar association constituted primarily of lawyers in private and corporate practice, in government service, and in the academic community. AIPLA represents a wide and diverse spectrum of individuals, companies and institutions involved directly or indirectly in the practice of patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, and unfair competition law, as well as other fields of law affecting intellectual property. Our members represent both owners and users of intellectual property.

The Authors Guild has consistently argued that authors should be compensated for electronic publication of their work, just as they are paid for print publication – whether the works are published as electronic books, reprinted on the Internet, included in a library database or made available in any other electronic format.

Welcome to the U.S. Copyright Office. We in the Copyright Office are proud to be part of a long tradition of promoting progress of the arts and protection for the works of authors. We are also excited about the reengineering of our operations. Our goal is to make major improvements in our public services and a key part of this initiative is providing the opportunity to register your works online via our website.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the Federal agency for granting U.S. patents and registering trademarks. In doing this, the USPTO fulfills the mandate of Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the Constitution that the Executive branch "promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries." The USPTO registers trademarks based on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3).

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest. WIPO was established by the WIPO Convention in 1967 with a mandate from its Member States to promote the protection of IP throughout the world through cooperation among states and in collaboration with other international organizations. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. The Director General is Francis Gurry.

IPM is designed to: * Keep in-house counsel around the world well briefed on what's happening across the intellectual property spectrum; * Deliver practical advice and tools for developing and executing strategy to protect intellectual property AND to maximise its value; * Provide the business perspective on global IP news and legal developments; and * Build better understanding between external counsel, in-house legal teams, brand and patent owners/managers and accounting staff worldwide.

Provides information regarding intellectual property, copyright, trademarks and patent licensing laws.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has an office called Licensing and Review that performs certain functions, such as clearance of subject matter, to ensure compliance with the Patent Secrecy Act. The following are frequently asked questions related to Licensing and Review and foreign filing licenses.