A commercial model in which a rights holder (the licensor) grants another party (the licensee) permission to use a proprietary asset, such as a patent, trademark or other intellectual property, as part of an agreement between them. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Core MechanismThe rights holder (licensor) grants another party (licensee) permission to use protected intellectual property or another asset under agreed terms, typically for a fee or royalty, without transferring ownership. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Wikipedia, Bill Gates
Franchising is defined by its own source article as involving the licensing of intellectual property and business-format knowhow, making it a specific commercial application of the licensing model rather than an unrelated concept.
Source Wikipedia, Franchising
Larry Ellisons Oracle built its business on licensing database software to enterprise customers rather than selling hardware or services alone.
Source Wikipedia, Larry Ellison
The source's own history of the pharmaceutical industry describes a discovered compound as patented and licensed to Bayer, which marketed it under the Veronal trade name beginning in 1904, a licensing arrangement dated to the industry's own early history.
Source Wikipedia, Pharmaceutical Industry
Richard Branson expanded Virgin by licensing the Virgin brand to partner ventures across many unrelated industries.
Source Wikipedia, Richard Branson
Open Questions
Source Wikipedia, Licensing
Sources
1. Wikipedia, Licensing
WikipediaLead section
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreement between those parties.
Patent licensing section
Such payments are referred to as royalty payments and come primarily in two forms: lump sum or running royalty.
Trademark licensing section
The first form demands a fee independent of sales and profits, the second type of license fee is dependent on the productivity of the licensee.
Real property licenses section lead-in, IP licensing sentence
A licensor may grant a license under intellectual property laws to authorize a use (such as copying software or using a patented invention) to a licensee, sparing the licensee from a claim of infringement brought by the licensor.
View the Source Wikipedia, Franchising
WikipediaAssociated With: Franchising, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Franchising, Lead section
It can involve the franchisor licensing some or part of its knowhow, procedures, intellectual property and other rights to sell its branded products
Wikipedia, Pharmaceutical Industry
WikipediaAssociated With: Pharmaceutical Industry, History section, Barbiturates subsectionQuote, Associated With: Pharmaceutical Industry, History section, Barbiturates subsection
The discovery was patented and licensed to Bayer pharmaceuticals, which marketed the compound under the trade name Veronal as a sleep aid beginning in 1904.
Wikipedia, Richard Branson
Wikipedia, Larry Ellison
Wikipedia, Bill Gates
Open Questions (1 open question)
In what era did licensing emerge as a distinct commercial business model, rather than only a legal instrument?
Wikipedia's article on licensing defines the legal mechanism ('an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something') but does not address when licensing became a commercial revenue strategy in its own right, as opposed to a legal concept as old as property law itself.
What would resolve this A business-history source tracing licensing's development as a deliberate revenue strategy, for example through the earlier history of patent or trademark licensing, distinct from the general legal concept of a license and from franchising's own separately documented origin.
Wikipedia, Licensing
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