F.5 The public sector body must determine its ownership rights in the existing IPRs. For example, does the inventor of the patent have certain rights over the patent? If so, how are these to be dealt with? Could the copyright be Crown Copyright, in which case the appropriate consents will need to be obtained from HMSO? All these issues will need to be tackled very early on in the process of setting up a JV entity, preferably when preparing the OBC.
F.6 If the public sector body is a licensee and the IPRs are owned by a third party, it will need to establish exactly what rights it has to make the IPRs available to the JV. This will depend upon the terms of its licence, which will need to be checked to determine whether the public sector body can assign the licence to the JV or grant a sub-licence to the JV. If the licence prohibits either of these options, the public sector body needs to decide if those rights are needed for the JV to carry on business and if this is the case the public sector must re-negotiate the terms of the licence with the IPR owner.