LICENSE
license,n.1. A permission, usu. revocable, to commit some act that would otherwise be unlawful; esp., an agreement (not amounting to a lease or profit à prendre) that it is lawful for the licensee to enter the licensor’s land to do some act that would otherwise be illegal, such as hunting game. See SERVITUDE(1). [Cases: Licenses 43. C.J.S. Easements § 9; Licenses § 88.]
“[A] license is an authority to do a particular act, or series of acts, upon another’s land, without possessing any estate therein. It is founded in personal confidence, and is not assignable, nor within the statute of frauds.” 2 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law *452–53 (George Comstock ed., 11th ed. 1866).
2. The certificate or document evidencing such permission. — license,vb.
artistic license.An open-source license that prohibits the sale of modified software unless it is
included in a package with other software.
bare license.A license in which no property interest passes to the licensee, who is merely not
a trespasser. • It is revocable at will. — Also termed naked license; mere license. [Cases: Licenses
43, 57. C.J.S. Easements § 9; Licenses §§ 88, 95, 101–102.]
blanket license.Copyright. A license granted by a performing-rights society, such as ASCAP or BMI, to use all works in the society’s portfolio in exchange for a fixed percentage of the user’s revenues.
box-top license.See shrink-wrap license.
BSD license.A form of open-source license that allows users to incorporate the source code into proprietary products as long as the names of the original creator or contributors are not used to endorse or promote the products without permission. — Also termed BSD-style license.
click-wrap license.See POINT-AND-CLICK AGREEMENT.
compulsory license. 1.Copyright. A statutorily created license that allows certain parties to use copyrighted material without the explicit permission of the copyright owner in exchange for a specified royalty. — Also termed equitable remuneration. [Cases: Copyrights and Intellectual Property 48.1. C.J.S. Copyrights and Intellectual Property §§ 86–91.] 2.Patents. A statutorily created license that allows certain people to pay a royalty and use an invention without the patentee’s permission. • While some nations currently recognize compulsory licenses, the United States never has.
cross-license.Patents. An agreement between two or more patentees to exchange licenses for their mutual benefit and mutual use of the licensed products. [Cases: Patents 206. C.J.S. Patents
§ 342.] distribution license.A marketing license, usu. limited by geography.
exclusive license.A license that gives the licensee the sole right to perform the licensed act, often in a defined territory, and that prohibits the licensor from performing the licensed act and from granting the right to anyone else; esp., such a license of a copyright, patent, or trademark right. [Cases: Patents 211(1). C.J.S. Patents § 348.]
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general-public license.See open-source license.
implied license.A royalty-free license arising from a property owner’s conduct regarding another person’s use of the property even though the owner has not expressly consented to the property’s use. • In a patent context, the circumstances surrounding the conduct give rise to an affirmative grant of consent or permission to infringe a patent’s claims. For example, the conduct of a patentee who encourages the manufacture of infringing products may constitute an implied license to use the patent. An implied license may also arise when a patentee authorizes the sale or express grant of a license to a buyer, who then resells the license to a third party; the third party is the patentee’s implied licensee. [Cases: Patents 210. C.J.S. Patents § 346.]
implied license by acquiescence.An implied license that arises from the patentee’s tacit or
passive acceptance of or implied consent to an otherwise infringing act.
implied license by conduct.An implied license based on the patentee’s course of conduct, including language, from which another person could properly infer that the patentee consented to the other’s use of the patent. See implied license by equitable estoppel; implied license by legal estoppel.
implied license by equitable estoppel.An implied license usu. based on the patentee’s failure to take timely action to enforce patent rights against an infringer after objecting to the infringer’s actions, thereby misleading the infringer into believing that the patentee will not act. See A.C. Aukerman Co. v. R.L. Chaides Constr. Co., 960 F.2d 1020, 1042–43 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
implied license by legal estoppel.An implied license usu. based on the patentee’s broadcast
grant of a right or interest that cannot be derogated by the patentee’s later acts.
label license.A notice on an item’s package granting the purchaser a license to practice the
process by using the item without additional payments to the licensor.
license coupled with an interest.An irrevocable license in real estate that confers the right (not the mere permission) to perform an act or acts upon the property; esp., a license incidental to the ownership of an interest in a chattel located on the land with respect to which the license exists. • This type of license is considered an interest in the land itself. An injunction may be obtained to prevent the wrongful revocation of such a license. — Also termed license coupled with the grant of an interest. [Cases: Licenses 43, 57. C.J.S. Easements § 9; Licenses §§ 88, 95, 101–102.]
“A licence may be coupled with some interest in the land or chattels thereon. Thus the right to enter another man’s land to hunt and take away the deer killed, or to cut down a tree and remove it, involves the grant of an interest in the deer or tree and also a licence annexed to it to come on the land. The interest must be a recognised interest in the property, and it must have been validly created. Thus at law a right to take game or minerals, being a profit à prendre, must have been created by deed or prescription, whereas no formalities are required for the grant of a right to take away chattels, such as felled timber or cut hay. Equity will give effect to a specifically enforceable agreement to grant an interest, so that a licence coupled with a profit à prendre granted merely in writing but for value may be protected by injunction.” Robert E. Megarry & M.P. Thompson, A Manual of the Law of Real Property 428 (6th ed. 1993).
mechanical license.A grant of the right to produce and release a copyrighted work in
exchange for a royalty based on the number of units manufactured and sold.
mere license.See bare license.
Mozilla public license.An open-source license that allows software users to modify and publicly distribute the software, but requires users to release the changed software under the same copyright as the original source code, and to release all claims to patent rights. • The Mozilla public license was developed for the Netscape and Netscape Communicator browsers but is not limited to use with them. — Abbr. MPL.
naked license. 1. A license allowing a licensee to use a trademark on any goods and services the licensee chooses. [Cases: Trade Regulation 108. C.J.S. Trade-Marks, Trade-Names, and Unfair Competition §§ 209–212.] 2. See bare license.
nonexclusive license.A license of intellectual-property rights that gives the licensee a right to use, make, or sell the licensed item on a shared basis with the licensor and possibly other licensees.
nonmetered license.Patents. An agreement to allow a patent’s use in exchange for a flat percentage of sales, regardless of how much the patent is actually used. • The Supreme Court rejected a nonmetered license as patent misuse, saying the buyer has a right to insist on paying only for actual use. Zenith Radio Co. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U.S. 100, 8
9 S.Ct. 1562
(1969). See PATENT-MISUSE DOCTRINE. [Cases: Patents 218(5). C.J.S. Patents § 371.]
open-source license.A license that allows open-source software users to copy, distribute, or modify the source code, and publicly distribute derived works based on the source code. • Open-source licenses usu. do not require royalty or other fees on distribution. The license typically requires a user who redistributes original or modified software that was received under an open-source license to provide the original license terms, including all disclaimers, to all future users, and to distribute the source code with any machine-executable software. It is unclear who has the right or power to enforce the terms of an open-source license. — Sometimes termed general-public license. proprietary license.A license that restricts a software user’s ability to copy, distribute, or
modify the software.
shrink-wrap license.A license printed on the outside of a software package to advise the buyer that by opening the package, the buyer becomes legally bound to abide by the terms of the license. • Shrink-wrap licenses usu. seek to (1) prohibit users from making unauthorized copies of the software, (2) prohibit modifications to the software, (3) limit use of the software to one computer, (4) limit the manufacturer’s liability, and (5) disclaim warranties. — Also written shrinkwrap license. — Also termed box-top license; tear-me-open license. See
POINT-AND-CLICK AGREEMENT. [Cases: Copyrights and Intellectual Property 107.]
site license.Copyright. A software license that allows a company to install a set number of
copies on individual computers within the company.
synchronization license.A license to reproduce and synchronize a copyrighted musical composition with visual images that are not covered by the musical work’s copyright. • Synchronization rights are commonly associated with audiovisual productions, such as music videos or movies.
tear-me-open license.See shrink-wrap license.
use-based license.An open-source software license to which the user assents by acting
according to the license’s terms, namely, by using, modifying, or distributing the licensed software. • Unlike a point-and-click agreement, a use-based license does not require the user to expressly declare acceptance of the license terms before using the software.
[Blacks Law 8th]