Patent Owners and their Rights
August 25, 2011
Patent News and Interesting Facts
Patent Inventions
Patent owners are the exclusive rights holders for specific inventions. They receive the rights in return for full public disclosure about their inventions. As such patents are exclusive rights granted rather than rights to making or using of an invention.
Patent owners can assign their patent rights to other parties. In effect this implies transferring of the rights from the patent owner to another party.
Patents have the save attributes as personal property and as such can thus be sold to interest parties. The assignment must be recorded also in the Patent Office.
Entire ownership or a percentage of the ownership is transferred from the patent owner to the purchaser. The transfer must include all the rights which go with patent ownership such as the title and interest.
The patent right owners can furthermore award license rights to other parties. In this case the rights and ownership are retained while usage, marketing, distribution, making and selling rights can be awarded by means of a license agreement.
License Agreements
This may also for instance, include import rights. The party that obtains such rights is called the licensee whereas the patent owner awarding such rights by means of a licensing agreement is called the licensor.
There are specific obligations on the part of the licensee such as operation within the stipulated boundaries.
Patent owners can grant exclusive licenses to parties, meaning that the patent owner may then not compete with the licensee in a particular region and for a specific time and usage as stipulated in the license agreement between the parties.
There can be one or more patent rights owners for the same patent. Multiple patent owners can have interests in the same invention when they have worked together in the creation of the invention.
Contact us at Smit & Van Wyk Patent Attorneys for assistance in the registration, assignment, and licensing of patent rights.
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