Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM), a branch of Liberty Mutual Insurance, has developed a new global product that aims to streamline contract negotiations between businesses by covering Intellectual Property (IP) infringement risks.
LSM’s new Intellectual Property Contractual Liability Insurance is designed to provide a solution to IP indemnification issues that could potentially delay or terminate contracts.
The product will compensate for financial losses, like legal fees, expenses, and damages, incurred in defending legal proceedings for infringement of IP, and will cover both in-licensing and out-licensing – i.e. both the sale and purchase of the right to use a product or service.
Written by LSM’s specialist IP team in London and available globally, the new product will be based on the company’s existing IP cover but streamlined to speed up the application and underwriting process.
Camilla Walker, Underwriter at LSM, commented: “Businesses want to be confident that if they license a product or service, it won’t result in them incurring significant costs defending a claim for infringing a third party’s IP.
“The usual solution is to ask the vendor to indemnify the purchaser, but that indemnity is not always forthcoming. That’s why we’ve developed this product to provide specific, lower cost coverage for just these situations.
“The coverage acts as a business enabler, giving clients the opportunity to enter into revenue generating deals they otherwise would not have been able to, or to negotiate better terms and conditions within contracts through settling the issue of IP indemnification in this manner.”
LSM developed this product in response to growing demand for indemnification within contracts, and designed it to be relevant across any sector that addresses IP, such as engineering, technology, packaging, and software development.
