New Licence Agreement Templates and Information

Following on from the new and updated Software Licence Agreement templates published last month, two new variants are now available, incorporating additional provisions which enable the licensed software to be used not only by the licensee, but also by its affiliates. Furthermore, in limited circumstances, the licensee is also given the right to grant sub-licences.

Affiliates are defined in these new licence agreements as a business entity which controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with the licensee (“control” being determined by a set percentage of ownership of outstanding voting securities or capital stock or another comparable equity or ownership interest in the case of businesses that are not companies). This allows the software in question to be used not only by the licensee, but by other companies within the licensee’s group.

Further terms permit the licensee to grant limited sub-licences to certain agents, contractors, and sub-contractors for the purposes of carrying out specific services such as software development, IT support, or outsourcing. Time-limited sub-licences can also be granted companies or businesses which cease to be affiliates during the term of the licence, thereby providing them with time to make new licensing arrangements after breaking away from the group without suddenly taking the software away.

New versions of both the Standard Software Licence Agreement and the Standard Software Licence Agreement with Escrow Provisions are available.

New Information Category – Software and the Law

A new category of information has been added to our Business Information pages, addressing key legal aspects of software including intellectual property rights and software licensing. The topics and pages are shown to the right of this page and can also be accessed here.

New pages and topics will be added to this category over the coming weeks and months.