There is no patent, but the royalties are signed.

Q: I initially signed a patent licensing contract with a company to pay the royalties, but later the patent was declared invalid. Can I ask the other party to return the royalties?

A: The Scout Law Online Consultation will answer your question.

Patent right is a kind of property right, and anyone who wants to implement patent right must pay royalties to the patentee. Of course, in practice, there are also cases where the patentee does not collect royalties through cross-licensing with others. Patent royalty refers to the fee paid by the licensee to the licensor (that is, the patentee) for the exploitation of the patentee's patent.

How to calculate the royalty reasonably is a very important but very difficult problem in the licensing contract. The determination of royalties depends on many factors, including:

(1) expenses incurred by the patentee in patent research and development;

(2) the economic benefits that the licensee can obtain by using the patent;

(3) Types, implementation methods and time limits of patent licensing;

(four) the way and time for the licensee to pay the royalties.

It should be noted that excessive patent licensing fees are not conducive to the popularization and application of technology, and also hinder the realization of effective competition in the market, so excessive patent licensing fees are no longer a legal monopoly. All countries in the world apply anti-monopoly law to regulate this monopolistic behavior of abuse of rights.