If done intelligently and strategically, everyone will benefit from cross-licensing technology patents – the companies themselves, the industry and consumers. However, it is necessary for cartel authorities, antitrust authorities and other patent litigation regulators to monitor broader and broader cross-licensing agreements to ensure continued healthy competition. If you think your Dallas/Fort Worth business could benefit from a cross-licensing agreement, we`d like to help you explore your options. Call Gagnon`s lawyers, Peacock-Vereeke, P.C., at (214) 824-1414 to speak to a qualified lawyer who can give you the advice and support you need today. At Gagnon, Peacock-Vereeke, P.C., our intellectual property lawyers have years of experience protecting the intellectual property rights and interests of individuals and businesses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Our legal team can help you enter into a cross-licensing agreement or any other type of intellectual property agreement. The cost of licensing a cross-licensed intellectual property is unaffordable for most start-ups. Antitrust authorities are not interested in cross-licensing portfolios that contain provisions that could lead to competition-related agreements, such as market allocation or pricing. Patent pools are also subject to extensive scrutiny to ensure that they do not unfairly compromise competition or reduce incentives for innovation. A cross-licensing agreement is a contract between two or more companies or parties in which each party confers on other parties the power to own its intellectual property.
Cross-licensing contracts create a number of important advantages: for these reasons, it is generally considered unwise for a company to contract its critical and critical technology patents in cross-licensing agreements. It is also possible to introduce clauses limiting direct competition between the two cross-licensing partners. For example, in the Microsoft-Apple agreement mentioned above, there are anti-cloning provisions to protect against literal copying of products. Most of the time, this type of agreement is reached between two parties to resolve infringement disputes in each case. As a result, each party continues its freedom to market the product through a cross-licensing agreement. Parties entering into cross-licensing agreements must be careful not to violate cartel and abuse of dominance laws and regulations. This can easily become a complex subject that includes (for the European Union) art. 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFUE), formerly art. 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty (abuse of dominant position, etc.), as well as guidelines on licences, agreements, etc.
Economic literature has shown that capital-intensive companies are more likely to enter into a cross-licensing agreement. [7] So, with all these cross-licensing benefits, what can be bad? Here are some of the drawbacks that companies that should consider granting ip-cross licenses: According to a study by the Boston University School of Law, in 2011 patent litigation by the so-called patent role U.S. software and hardware companies cost an incredible $29 billion.
