Item 14: Patents, Copyrights, and Proprietary Information
Like Item 13, Item 14 of the amended Rule follows the UFOC Guidelines in requiring disclosure of information about intellectual property related to the franchise. Franchisors must disclose the types of intellectual property, their ownership rights or licenses in each, details about, and the duration of, their rights, and any legal proceedings, settlements, and restrictions that may impact the franchisee’s ability to use such property, among other things. Item 14 permits a franchisor to include an attorney’s opinion regarding the merits of litigation or of a PTO or similar action if the attorney issuing the opinion consents to its use. The text of the Item 14 disclosures may include a summary of the opinion if the full opinion is attached to Item 22 and the attorney issuing the opinion consents to the use of the summary. This article is part of a series of articles on starting a franchise in Minnesota. CREDIT: The content of this post has been copied or adopted from the Federal Trade Commission’s Franchise Rule Compliance Guide.