Licensing
Licensing has emerged as a major issue for IP owning companies. Trademark owners use licensing programmes to generate major revenue sources and to increase brand awareness; in the technology, pharma or biotech industry, licensing is a strategic way of exploiting IP, both in terms of competition policy and efficiency. Licensing out IP not only helps to offset the investments necessary to maintain a strong portfolio of rights, it also generates profits and builds shareholder value.
License agreements should be drafted with care. Drafting licensing agreements is our core business: we acknowledge that licensing contracts should include appropriate provisions on term and territory, royalty payments, performance and reporting audits, withholding tax issues, protection and quality control.
We also recognise that it is just as important to ensure full compliance of these agreements by the licensees. ‘IP rich’ companies are creating more and more income from licensing arrangements, however the resulting royalty stream is often not actively managed. In fact, in most cases it depends on the accurate self reporting of the licensee. Pro-active monitoring of the licensee’s performance will improve bottom line results.
ip-Licensing
To assist companies with the legal and financial management of their licensing agreements, Fidelitas established ip-Licensing: an efficient tool to manage contract compliance, including royalty collection, due dates and reminders, thereby monitoring licensee performance.
Our ‘License Management’ services include:
- Keep track of customers, products and issued licenses in a secure database
- Monitor licensee contract compliance, in the broadest sense
- Monitor licensee performance and credit control
- Issue invoices to the licensees
- Collect all royalty revenues on a timely basis
- International cash management and treasury services
