License your intellectual property to someone else
Let someone else use what you made, on terms you set.Someone wants to use something you created, and they are willing to pay for it. A licence is how you say yes without giving it away: what they may do with it, where, for how long, and what happens to anything they build on top. Get those terms wrong and you can find you have handed over more than you meant to, or blocked yourself out of your own market. We draft the licence so the limits are real ones.
Ownership stays with you
A licence is permission rather than a sale, and the document is what keeps that distinction real.
A grant with actual edges
Rights, territory, field of use and term are defined, so nothing is handed over by implication.
Improvements settled upfront
Who owns the better version is agreed before it exists, rather than argued about once it does.
What is an IP licence and what does it actually control?
A licence is permission to use intellectual property that still belongs to you. It is not a sale: ownership stays where it is, and the other party gets a defined right to do defined things for a defined time. The terms that matter most are the scope, meaning which rights and which territory, whether it is exclusive, what the licensee may and may not do, and who owns any improvement they make. Copyright in most creative and technical material arises automatically under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) (the Act), so you very likely own more than you have ever written down, and the licence is usually the first document that says so.
What is the difference between an exclusive and a non-exclusive licence?
A non-exclusive licence lets you license the same rights to others as well. An exclusive licence means only that licensee can use them, and in some cases not even you. A sole licence sits between the two: one licensee, but you keep the right to use it yourself.
Who owns improvements the licensee makes to my IP?
Whoever the agreement says, which is why it needs to say. If the licence is silent the licensee may well own what they created, and that can be the version that matters commercially. Settle it before anything is signed.
What can I charge for a licence?
Usually a combination of an upfront fee and ongoing royalties, sometimes with minimums so an exclusive licensee cannot simply sit on the rights. What the market will bear depends on how protectable the IP is and how hard it would be to work around.
Do I need to register my IP before I can license it?
Not always. Copyright arises automatically, and confidential know-how is protected by the agreement itself. Trade marks and patents are different, and registration makes both the licence and any enforcement far more straightforward.
Want to know what your IP is worth licensing?
Tell us what you have created and who wants to use it. We will tell you what can be licensed, what should stay with you, and where the value in the deal actually sits.
A licence is the only place your control is written down
You want the revenue and you don’t want to lose control of the thing that generates it, and those two pull against each other in every clause. The difficulty is that the terms deciding it are not the ones being negotiated. The fee gets the attention, while scope, exclusivity and ownership of improvements are agreed in passing. By the time the tension shows up, the licensee is already using it.
- We will confirm what intellectual property you own and whether anything is missing.
- We will define the scope, territory, term and exclusivity of the grant.
- We will draft the licence, including improvements, quality control and termination.
- We will negotiate the agreement with the other party.
You made it, and now somebody else wants to run with it
You developed a process, a design, a piece of technology or a body of material because your own business needed it. It worked, word got around, and now a larger organisation wants to use it under their own banner. The money is meaningful and the relationship could be worth more than the money. What you have not settled is what you are actually handing over, and whether you will still be able to use your own work the way you do now.
What's included in your IP licensing service
- A review of what you own and how you came to own it.
- Advice on exclusive, sole and non-exclusive structures and what each costs you.
- Drafting of the licence agreement.
- Negotiation with the licensee and their advisers.
- Advice on royalties, reporting and audit rights.
The clause you skipped is the one that decides the next ten years
A licence that does not say who owns improvements hands the licensee a reason to argue the better version is theirs, and the better version is the one the market will want. A grant written loosely can turn out to cover territories you meant to keep, or uses you never contemplated, with no way back until the term ends. Exclusivity given without a performance obligation is the quiet one: you have locked yourself out of a market and the licensee has no obligation to do anything in it. And a licence with no clear termination, and no return or destruction of materials, leaves your work in someone else’s systems long after the relationship is over.
How you license the work without losing it
We start by working out what you actually own, because that is often less settled than people assume, particularly where contractors or employees were involved. Then we define the grant narrowly and deliberately: which rights, which territory, which field of use, for how long, and exclusive or not. Improvements, confidentiality, quality control and what happens on termination get written down rather than assumed. If the deal is exclusive we tie it to the licensee actually doing something. You end up with a licence that earns you money and still leaves you holding the thing that makes it.
How a licensing deal comes together
Define what you are giving before you agree what it costs.Confirm what you own
We establish what the IP is and that it is actually yours, including anything created by contractors or staff along the way.
Scope the grant
We define the rights, the territory, the field of use, the term and whether it is exclusive. That is where the value sits.
Document and sign
We draft the licence, negotiate it with the other side, and make sure termination leaves you with your material back.
The terms that decide the value, settled before the fee is agreed
The hard part of licensing is not the money. It is that you are agreeing today to what somebody may do with your work for years, in situations neither of you has thought of yet. Most people negotiating their first licence are doing it opposite someone who has done a dozen.
We have 2 Accredited Specialists in Business Law. We are ISO 9001 accredited as well, so what happens on your file, and when you hear about it, are defined rather than assumed.
Our great lawyer guarantee
Six principles we hold to, whatever you bring us and however long it takes.
Take the time
We listen carefully to understand what you want to achieve, then step you through the advice and the documents.
Share our knowledge
We pass on as much as we can, so you can make your own informed decisions.
Stick to our knitting
We only do what we are good at, so you never pay for our learning.
Work as one team
Someone is always available to answer your question or point you the right way.
Fair pricing
A fixed or capped quote for advice and documents, so you do not carry the price risk.
It is your show
We are in it for a front row seat to witness your success, not for our egos.
License it on your terms
Tell us what you have created and who wants to use it. We will tell you what the deal is really giving away, and draft it so the limits hold.
More on this area of law
Read more about licensing, intellectual property and the agreements that decide who owns what.
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