Intellectual Property Agreement | Its Benefits & Drawbacks

Intellectual capital is the contraptions or mind creations of any form it can be artistic, design, related to literature, symbols, or images used in business. Any intellectual property can be protected from being copied with the help of intellectual property policy, like constructing copyrights, patents, etc.

These intellectual property policies and laws allow the inventor of that intellectual creation exclusive rights for utilizing and benefiting from their nature and are called intellectual property rights or IPRs ("IP Agreement – Doc | Laws.com," 2019). There are four kinds of intellectual property rights; trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, and patents.

There are two kinds of intellectual property agreements; intellectual property assignment and intellectual property licenses. An intellectual property assignment agreement is a formal contract that permits the ownership transfer of any intellectual property from one to the other.

Benefits & Drawbacks

One of the benefits of having the rights to intellectual property is that it gives you the ability to assign them or license them to someone capable for some period ("How to draft an Intellectual Property License Agreement," 2019). Thus, such agreements help the IT rights owner to put its IP to practical use and therefore benefit from it. Assigning or licensing intellectual property can be beneficial in the following ways:1) Helps the owner to put the IP into the possible use2) Owner is saved from incurring the manufacturing cost3) No distribution cost for the owner4) A convenient way to put the intellectual property to use5) Faster launch of the intellectual property in the market6) Risk is shared between both the parties in case of any failure.7) Provides a competitive advantage by faster market penetration through already existing channels ("What is an Intellectual Property Assignment Agreement?", 2019)

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Drawback – The only drawback of having an IP agreement that can be thought of is if it is not drafted carefully before paying attention to all the mandatory clauses in the contract. It is critical to draft and evaluates all the terms and conditions properly beforehand so that nothing is left out.

Purpose of the Intellectual Property Agreement

The purpose of having an IP agreement be it for licensing or assignment is to encourage the creation of innovative IPs, the preservation of these IPs, and also the exploitation of them by the creators for maximum benefits. Such agreements assist the IP creators to either transfer the ownership or provide license of a specific intellectual property to the firm or an entity that is in the best form to extract the best out of it. Such written agreements are critical as they act as a protection of the rights of these fostered innovations ("What is an Intellectual Property Assignment Agreement?", 2019). These agreements help focus more on research and development by providing the best protection to such ideas and to reap the best benefits out of them.

Negotiation Strategy

It is very critical to negotiate the intellectual property clauses in intellectual property assigning or licensing agreements. It is essential for both parties to investigate and comprehend the part that intellectual property would play in the deliverable of the agreement.

The owner of the intellectual property holds the rights over its content; hence, these rights give them an upper hand while negotiating the IP agreement clauses. It is important to understand that the grantor here has higher leverage here; he is the one who understands the true core value of the intellectual property owned. The grantor must be very open-minded while negotiating the terms of this IP agreement.