The verb
license or
grant license
means to give permission. The noun license
(
licence in
British and
Canadian spelling) refers to that permission as well as to the
document memorializing that permission. License may be granted by a
party ("licensor") to another party ("licensee") as an element of
an agreement between those parties. A shorthand definition of a
license is "an authorization (by the licensor) to use the licensed
material (by the licensee)."
Intellectual property
A licensor may grant
license under
intellectual property laws to
authorize a use (such as copying software or using a (
patented) invention) to a licensee, sparing the
licensee from a claim of infringement brought by the
licensor.
A license under intellectual property commonly has several
component parts beyond the grant itself, including a
term,
territory,
renewal provisions, and other limitations deemed
vital to the licensor.
Term: many licenses are valid for a particular
length of time. This protects the licensor should the value of the
license increase, or market conditions change. It also preserves
enforceability by ensuring that no license extends beyond the term
of IP ownership.
Territory: a license may stipulate what territory
the rights pertain to. For example, a license with a territory
limited to "North America" (United States/Canada) would not permit
a licensee any protection from actions for use in Japan.
Mass licensing of software
Mass distributed software is used by individuals on personal
computers under license from the developer of that software. Such
license is typically included in a more extensive end-user license
agreement (EULA) entered into upon the installation of that
software on a computer.
Under a typical end-user license agreement, the user may install
the software on a limited number of computers.
The enforceability of end-user license agreements is sometimes
questioned.
Trademark and brand licensing
A licensor may grant permission to a licensee to distribute
products under a
trademark. With such a
license, the licensee may use the trademark without fear of a claim
of trademark infringement by the licensor.
Artwork and character licensing
A licensor may grant a permission to a licensee to copy and
distribute
copyrighted works such as "art"
(e.g.,
Thomas Kincaid's painting
"Dawn in Los Gatos") and characters (e.g.,
Mickey Mouse). With such license, a licensee
need not fear a claim of copyright infringement brought by the
copyright owner.
Artistic license is, however, not
related to the aforementioned license. It is a euphemism that
denotes approaches in art works where dramatic effect is achieved
at the expense of
factual
accuracy.
Academy
- National examples of the License are listed at Licentiate
A
license is an
academic degree. Originally, in order to
teach at a university, one needed this degree which, according to
its title, gave the bearer a license to teach. The name survived
despite the fact that nowadays
doctorate
is typically needed in order to teach at a university. A person who
holds a license is called a
licentiate.
In Sweden and some European
universities
it is approximately equivalent to an
MPhil or
MRes. In those countries, a license is a
middle-level degree between a master's degree and a doctorate,
taken by doctoral candidates, and is a popular choice in those
countries where a "true" PhD would take five or more years to
achieve.
In other countries, i.e.
Poland
or France
, a license
is achieved before the master's degree (it takes 3 years of studies
to become licentiate and 2 additional
years to become Master). In Switzerland
, a licence is a 4-year degree then there is a
DEA degree which is
equivalent to the Master's
degree. In Portugal
, before the
Bologna process, students would
become licentiates after 5 years of studies (4 years in particular
cases like Marketing, Management, etc; and 6 years for
Medicine). However, since the adoption of the
Bologna Process engineering degrees in
Portugal were changed from a 5 year licence to a 3 year licence
followed by 2 years for the MSc: Not having the MSc doesn't confer
accreditation by the
Ordem dos
Engenheiros)
Spelling
In US English both the noun and the verb are spelt
License. In Commonwealth/British English the noun
is usually spelt
Licence and the verb
License, although the Oxford English Dictionary
does allow
License as a noun. The change from
s to
c to distinguish the noun
from the verb is also seen in other words such as:
advice (noun) vs
advise (verb)
and
practice (noun) vs
practise
(verb). The
advice/advise pair can be used as an
aide-memoire as they are generally not confused because they have
different pronunciation.
Devise and
device follow the same rule.
See also
References
Edward Browm Economics 1999
External links
Wikibooks