Licences and non-licences

The IPKat's scholarly and distinguished friend Professor Bob Gomulkiewicz (University of Washington School of Law) is visiting this year at Oxford's Intellectual Property Research Centre, where he is researching the history of intellectual property licensing. If you know of any useful articles, books, papers, or other sources he should be browsing through, Bob will be grateful to learn about them. Possible topics would include early copyright licensing by collective rights organizations, early patent licensing, and early licensing of unregistered trade marks. You can email Bob here.


A few weeks ago the IPKat put out a plea for information concerning "non-asserts". He wrote:

"It sometimes happens, usually when an intellectual property dispute is settled by agreement, that the IP rights owner undertakes not to assert his right against the other party to the agreement. In theory the rights owner merely forbears to sue, but in practice it can be said to be a licence. Does any reader of this blog know of any reported cases -- in any jurisdiction -- which turned on whether the non-assert was characterised as a licence or not?".

After a respectable time the Kat returns to this subject to report on readers' responses, which were quite limited this time round. Several UK readers identified the same case: SAFARI Trade Mark, a 2001 decision of Allan James of the UK IPO. Alas, this was the only bit of case law received from the UK or indeed from any other jurisdiction.

Left: not all consumers find SAFARI an appealing brand concept

Curiously, all of the respondents who suggested this case were trade mark attorneys. Anyway, thanks for taking the time and trouble to write in -- and thanks also to those of you whose correspondence the Kat appreciated receiving.