Technology licensing

Licensing agreements have tended to follow aggregate alliance trends. Manufacturing and service sectors have accounted for the bulk of both the recorded surge and the subsequent slowdown in licensing agreements in the past twenty years or so. Companies are found to engage in licensing agreements the closer their technological and market profiles, the more familiar they are with each other through prior agreements, the higher their experience with licensing, and the stronger the intellectual property protection in the primary line of business of the licensor. Licensing now occupies a central position in intellectual property asset management (IPAM); large and small companies as well as universities have developed increasingly sophisticated IPAM strategies. Still, significant differences remain between countries in terms of intellectual property protection practices, the cost of such practices, and the pursuit of licensing as an IPAM mechanism. While there is a widespread impression that the benefits of moving toward a global patent system will be quite substantial, such a development is fraught with complications.