Glossary - L

Laboratory Notebook

is used by scientists in research activities to document their development of their work. It may serve as a primary record of research. Therefore laboratory notebooks are especially useful in protecting IP rights coming from research, as they constitute a proof of the date of developing an invention.

Legal Entity (FP7)

means, in the context of FP7, any natural or legal person created under the national law of its place of establishment, or under community law or international law, which has a legal personality and which may - acting under its own name - exercise rights and be subject to obligations. In the case of natural persons, references to an establishment are deemed to refer to habitual residence.

Legal Entity (Horizon 2020)

means, in the context of Horizon 2020, any natural person, or any legal person created and recognised as such under national law, Union law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations.

Legitimate Interest

in the context of FP7, relates to beneficiaries’ interests regarding ownership of background and foreground and access rights. For instance, legitimate interest may be raised upon other beneficiaries’ attempts for protecting foreground or its dissemination. In both cases, the beneficiary in question will need to show that he might suffer disproportionately great harm.

Letter of Demand (of payment)

is a letter setting out certain demands to a person (individual or legal entity) suspected of infringing intellectual property rights that are issued by the owner of those intellectual property rights. The letter gives the recipient the chance to rectify the problem, to pay a sum of money or comply with the contractual commitment, under specific terms and within a specified time.

License Agreement

The contract under which the owner of an intellectual property right (‘licensor’) gives permission to another individual or entity (‘licensee’) to use this right for a period of time and within a defined territory. Without such permission, this use would infringe patent or trademark rights.  Therefore the license can allow the licensee to legitimately use, sell, offer to sell, and import the invention protected by intellectual property rights (in this case, by patent). In return, in the majority of cases, the licensor receives royalty payments. Signing a license agreement does not transfer the ownership of the invention to the licensee.

Likelihood of confusion

is a concept, which will be applied in a situation of trade mark registration (opposition) or infringement proceedings in order to determine, if an entity’s sign is similar to another entity’s registered trade mark, identifying similar goods and services and therefore leading the relevant consuming public to believe that these goods and services originate from that other entity.

Locarno Classification

is an international classification system used to classify goods for the registration of industrial designs, and is administered by WIPO. This classification is currently used by more than 50 national offices and by organisations such as EUTM and WIPO.