Answer ... A licensee can obtain any or all of the exclusive rights that a patent owner has under a patent. A patent provides its owner with the exclusive right, privilege and liberty of making, constructing, using and selling the claimed invention. A patent owner can license any or all of these rights and the grant of the rights can be exclusive, non-exclusive or sole.

An exclusive licence grants the rights to the licensee to the exclusion of all others, including the patent owner.

A non-exclusive licence grants the rights to the licensee, but does not preclude the patent owner from granting similar licences to others.

A sole licence is a type of a non-exclusive licence where a sole licence grants the rights to the licensee to the exclusion of third parties, but does not prevent the patent owner from practising the claimed invention.

Answer ... A patent owner can limit a licence in many ways. For example, a licence may be limited by:

• territory (eg, a particular province or territory in Canada);
• types of rights (eg, the right to make, construct, use or sell);
• duration (eg, a particular licence duration that is shorter than the life of a patent); and
• field of use (eg, a product category, a technology application, or whether the use constitutes commercial exploitation).

Further, a patent owner may impose a sub-licensing limit so that the licensee cannot sub-license to a third party.