Licensing without a Patent

[SamuelK]

I recently came across a article on www.ukinventorsforum.proboards.com where someone asked this question but without any explanatory answers. The responses to the question seem to be indicating that you can sometimes Licens a product or item without actually going throught the whole patenting process. Does anyone here know how under what circumstances this can be done and what the process would be in terms of actually licensing a item that is not patented?

Cheers

Sam

[Diamond]

I recently came across a article on http://www.ukinventorsforum.proboards.com where someone asked this question but without any explanatory answers. The responses to the question seem to be indicating that you can sometimes Licens a product or item without actually going throught the whole patenting process. Does anyone here know how under what circumstances this can be done and what the process would be in terms of actually licensing a item that is not patented?

Cheers

Sam

I'd have thought that if your name / trademark is valuable / well known then that in itself would be the perfect thing to license.

For example with many Children's products the kids want to buy goods that have pictures of their favourite characters on them like MR Men, TeleTubbies, Harry Potter, etc. So makers of toys, lunch boxes, etc will pay a licence to use those famous characters on their products to help sell them.

Also if your product is based on a trade secret that could be another way.