ASSIGNMENT OF PATENTS, TRADEMARKS, AND COPYRIGHTS

The primary difference between assigning a patent and licensing a patent is crucial.  Assigning Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights is essentially selling the total ownership interest in that patent, trademark, or copyright.  And the licensing of a patent, trademark, or copyright is like “renting” that patent, trademark, or copyright.

Assignment of Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights can be created in whole or in component.  In other words, you might assign away 50%, 1%, or 99% of your interest in that Patent, Trademark, or Copyright.  Assignments might be integrated into a contract, or might be drafted separately.  And the assignment of Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights can be fairly straight forward.

By way of contrast, the licensing of Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights is essentially “renting” those Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights.  In the most strict legal sense, a license for Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights is fundamentally a promise not to sue the licensee for infringement of those Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights which belong to you.  These licenses are typically time-constrained.  They may possibly be made for a fixed number of months, years, decades, or contingent upon a specific event.

Assignments, like deeds, are not time sensitive.  As soon as you assign those Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights, your rights in those Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights are gone forever.  In other words, you can not assign those rights in your Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights for a period of months, years, or decades.

For this reason, an assignment of Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights will be more valuable than a straightforward license to those Patents, Trademarks or Copyrights.  As such, any assignment you make should be duly recorded with the USPTO, Library of Congress, or your Secretary of State.

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