Licensing

Intellectual property owners can transfer or share their Intellectual Property rights to a second party, usually in exchange for a monetary payment or some other benefit. Payment may be upfront, in installments, as a subscription, and/or as royalties, which is some percentile, usually of the revenue of the goods or services relying on the IP. An assignment is a permanent grant of some portion or the entirety of IP rights, whereas a license is usually for a fixed term.

An IP owner can grant licenses to multiple parties, such that rights of the licencees overlap, enabling them to prevent third parties from using the IP but not each other. An exclusive license would be a grant of IP rights to a single party, and is therefore more valuable to the licensee.

Assignments and Licenses are creatures of contract, and therefore an IP owner can selectively transfer portions of their IP rights. For example, a copyright owner may choose to transfer the right to use the copyrighted work in film but may choose to reserve the right to use it in toys or other merchandise in order to transfer that to a different party.