Issue link: https://htpgraphics.uberflip.com/i/116731
How can IP be commercialised? Section 1 When will I need to consider whether to sell or allow someone to use my IP? Figure 1 illustrates some examples of when a licence or an assignment of your IP may be involved. Figure 1 If you write an article for a publisher, the publisher is likely to request you to either assign or license your copyright in the article to the publisher. If you want to allow someone to use and commercialise an invention that you have developed and patented, you will need to license that person the rights to use and commercialise the invention and the patent. If you are working on a collaborative project with another company or institution under which you intend to combine each others' intellectual property and develop it further – you will require a licence from the other party to use its IP for the purposes of the project. Likewise, the other party will require a licence from you to use your IP for the purposes of the project. If you have written a particular piece of software, you may want to license the object code for this software to end-users. When a spin out company is set up it will often require certain IP to be transferred to it. This will sometimes be in the form of an assignment as any investors who put money into the company may insist that the company owns the IP it requires. However, in some cases the spin-out may take a licence of the IP instead. 6