Assignment and Licensing

A scientist at a Pune research lab patents a new battery design. She cannot build a factory herself, so she has two options: sell the patent outright to a manufacturer, or let the manufacturer use it for a royalty while she keeps ownership. The first is an assignment and the second a licence. Both are contracts, but a patent contract is not like selling a scooter: the Patents Act insists on writing, registration and, in some cases, permits the State to force a licence on an unwilling patentee.

In two minutes

A patent can be assigned or licensed only by a written, duly executed document embodying all terms (s.68), the transaction should be registered (s.69), and in addition the Controller may impose a compulsory licence in the public interest (ss.84 to 94).

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Intellectual Property Laws on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.