Licensing of trade marks

You can give someone else permission to use your trade mark by granting them a licence in your mark. You may grant a licence for pending as well as registered marks.

The terms of any licence are entirely a matter between the proprietor and the licensee, and the Trade Marks Registry does not have any powers to investigate the propriety of a licence.

You may grant licences to any number of people, or you may grant an exclusive licence, which excludes anybody else, including the proprietor, from using the mark.

Licences may be general or limited in extent. You may limit a licence to:

• some of the goods or services for which the mark is registered, (see Classification of goods and services);
  
• a particular locality;
  
• a duration of time.

You do not have to register a licence with us, but we would encourage you to do so because if a licence is not registered the licensee will not be able to sue for infringement.

Note: Details of licences recorded against registrations are open to public inspection.

Form(s)

Application to register a licensee [TM50]

Application to remove or amend the recordal of a licence [TM51]