Letter of Request to Use Intellectual Property

A Letter of Request to Use Intellectual Property is a letter sent to the owner or originator of a work of intellectual property to request permission to use their work.

Intellectual property refers to intangible property and rights acquired by the owner of creative work, which includes patents, copyright, trademark, trade name or logo, trade secrets, and so on. The creator or owner of intellectual property has the sole right to use and grant permission to use intellectual property. Therefore, a party without rights to use a work of intellectual property must first send this letter to the originator of the work to obtain the required permission to use the work as any unauthorized use constitutes an infringement.

The first step is to ask the owner for their permission, and when the owner gives their approval, the parties may draw up a formal Licence Agreement outlining all the terms and conditions of the licence.

How to use this document

Any party can use this letter to obtain approval to use another person's work of intellectual property. In this letter, the following information will be required: the information about the sender and recipient of the letter (who is the owner of the work), a brief description of the specific work that the sender is requesting, the purpose of making the request and the contact details of the sender.

After completing this document, it should be printed and signed (either electronically or manually) by the party by sending the letter. If the sender is an organization, an officer of that organization should sign the letter. The officer should be authorized to sign and send letters of this nature on behalf of the organization.

Note that the sender may deliver this document as a letter or an email.

Applicable law

No laws are outlining the contents of an intellectual property request letter. However, the Trade Marks Act Cap T13, LFN 2004 and the Trade Marks Regulations,1990 apply to trademarks; the Nigerian Copyrights Act, Cap 28 LFN, 2004 apply to copyrights; and Patents and Designs Act, Cap P2 LFN, 2004 applies to registered patents in Nigeria.

How to modify the template

You fill out a form. The document is created before your eyes as you respond to the questions.

At the end, you receive it in Word and PDF formats. You can modify it and reuse it.