問10
頻出度★★★
自社の保有する特許の活用方法の一つとしてクロスライセンスがある。クロスライセンスにおける特許の実施権に関する説明として, 適切なものはどれか。
平成23年度 秋期 ITパスポート試験 問10
ストラテジ系法務 › 知的財産権
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 10
Incorrectア
“Grant the other party an exclusive license to use the patent” describes an exclusive license under patent law, not cross-licensing. Once an exclusive license is granted, even the patent holder itself can no longer work the patent within that scope, so an extremely strong right is concentrated in a single company. Cross-licensing is an arrangement for using each other's patents, and it normally takes the form of exchanging non-exclusive licenses; exclusivity is not one of its requirements. This statement is also wrong because the license runs in only one direction and lacks the essential element of the two sides granting licenses to each other.
Incorrectイ
“The party granted a license to use the patent further grants a sublicense to a third party” describes a sublicense. Here the license flows downstream from the licensee to a third party, which is not a two-way relationship in which the parties grant licenses to each other. A sublicense is possible only when the patent holder permits it in the contract, so it is a separate topic and has nothing to do with cross-licensing. Without mutuality, it cannot be called cross-licensing.
- ウ
正解 The correct answer is ウ. Cross-licensing is a contract in which two (or more) companies that each hold patents grant each other licenses so that they can use the other side's patents. As the word “cross” in the name shows, the essential point is that the flow of licensing is not one-way but two-way, and choice ウ, “Two companies that hold patents grant each other the right to use the patents they each hold”, matches this definition exactly. It assumes that both sides hold patents that are valuable to the other. Companies do this in order to avoid patent infringement disputes when they cannot make their own products without using the other party's patents, to offset royalties against each other and so reduce cash payments, and to take in the other party's technology and shorten development time. A patent can be used not only by working it in your own company but also by letting other companies use it in exchange for payment or for other technology, and cross-licensing is the representative example of this, which is why it appears on the exam.
Incorrectエ
“Multiple companies collectively manage their patents in one place, and from there grant licenses to participating companies, including those that do not hold patents” describes a patent pool. For standard technologies such as communication standards and video compression formats, a patent pool gathers the essential patents of many companies into one managing body and licenses them to the participating companies as a package through a single point of contact. Cross-licensing is a one-to-one mutual grant between parties that hold patents, whereas a patent pool is a many-party scheme run through a central managing body, and the decisive difference is that companies holding no patents can also receive licenses.
ここがポイント
- Cross-licensing (mutual licensing) = a contract in which parties that hold patents grant each other the right to use their patents. The aims are to avoid patent disputes, to offset royalties, and to shorten development time by using the other party's technology; the premise is that both sides hold patents that are valuable to the other.
- Learn to tell apart the similar patent-licensing terms: exclusive license (granted exclusively to one company) / non-exclusive license (can be granted to several companies at once) / sublicense (the party that received the license further grants a license to a third party) / patent pool (the patents of multiple companies are managed together in one place and licensed to participating companies as a package).
用語