US intellectual property law - restrictions for a licensor


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I am going to acquire a non-exclusive license from an American individual for a software. This software will be used as an integral part in my retail software which is under my own copyright. We have reached an agreement in which the licensor shall not provide the same non-exclusive lisence to any of my competitor to use it in the same software. The licensor will charge me a fee for this exclusive position annualy.
And me question is the following: does this restriction of licensor's rights meet the requirements of US Intellectual Law? If so, then what are the grounds and the clauses?
I did not find a law section so I hope someone can guide me this question.

Intellectual Property

asked Mar 26 '12 at 15:10
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User17044
6 points
  • I'm guessing you should just hire a lawyer for this. – Steve Jones 12 years ago

1 Answer


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Fundamentally, there's nothing about that which violates US IP laws -- there's no reason you can't have licenses that are exclusive in a specific area, but not others or to one country, but not others. In fact, it happens all the time, especially in the drug development industry.

There's a potential for anti-trust issues to be involved, though. That's a really tricky area that's not conducive to being answered here. The US FTC has more information here: http://www.ftc.gov/bc/tech/property/index.htm. However, it sounds like you're outside the US, so your local laws may vary.

answered Mar 27 '12 at 01:04
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Chris Fulmer
2,849 points

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