A non-assertion covenant (nonassert for short) is an agreement by a party not to seek to enforce

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

or other

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

rights it may have against another party or parties. Nonasserts are often used as patent-infringement

settlement agreement In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. A collective settlement is a settlement of multiple similar legal cases. The term also has other meanings in t ...

s that are designed and drafted with the purpose of preemptively resolving future infringement disputes. Nonasserts can take three forms: # an agreement between two parties # an agreement among several parties # a public statement A non-assert can specify the release of only certain patent rights or fields of use, or it can be broad and specify release for entire patent families, including future inventions in a certain area. Public statements effectively place rights to patents, or elements thereof, into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

. Nonasserts can have wide-ranging implications in terms of enhancing

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, infra ...

R&D. One application could be with patent rights covering research tools that are critical for accelerating the development of essential

biotechnological Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used by ...

applications. Specifically targeted non-asserts can also be effective instruments for industry to permit the use of patented inventions anywhere in the world, provided such use is for the express purposes of addressing specific

humanitarian Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional ...

needs in developing countries. This could have broad-ranging and significant positive impact, as this approach reduces transaction costs, encourages innovation to help the poor, and accomplishes this without any loss of commercial opportunities."Krattiger et al. 2007 "Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation: A Handbook of Best Practices"
Managing Innovation for a Better World
/ref>

References

{{reflist Patent law

See also

References