A new booklet launched today by the UK Intellectual Property Office will help small businesses exploit their intellectual property.

The booklet "How Licensing Intellectual Property Can Help Your Business" provides a wide range of information on IP licensing which includes advice on how to approach and conduct a productive IP licensing deal.

Licensing intellectual property is important to all types of businesses and can be a key instrument to achieving success.

For example, licensing can be appropriate to those who invent a product, to manufacturers and designers who configure or refine a product's appearance to the producers of packaging and marketing literature and materials. Through licensing businesses can gain benefits, financial or otherwise, by allowing others to use their intellectual property. Licensing also provides a means to gain access to intellectual property other businesses hold in order develop new products.

The new booklet was produced by the UK-IPO-led Business-to-Business Licensing Working Group which comprises over twenty individuals with a range of expertise and experience of licensing. The B2B group was set up in response to the recent Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, which highlighted the fact that UK businesses experienced problems with IP licensing.

The booklet "How Licensing Intellectual Property Can Help Your Business can be viewed at http://www.ipo.gov.uk/licensingbooklet.pdf

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