Patent Attorney and Founder
Understand, your patent attorneys, but does an inventor always need to patent their work in order to license? It’s a great question. What do you think? I like it, and I’m gonna ask you the same thing on the trademark side, Matt, later, okay?
Fundamentally, as I was trained and know the law, in order to structure a contract around an asset to license it, yes, you do have to have that asset. You have to own it. So yes, you would have to have a patent in order to license something. I believe there are agreements for transferring know-how, okay? And know-how or knowledge without actually having an asset, but it’s not a license. A license is a very specific type of legal document that articulates what specific type of asset is being given under what time period. What are the catches, right? What are the repercussions for termination and enforcement of that license? So, long story short, yes, you would need a patent to license something.