A judicial and legal study of compromise on intellectual property rights

Abstract EN

A compromise contract as a broad concept in the Imamiyyah jurisprudence and our civil code is considered a very general term that manifests the rule of will in most legal actions.

Compromise literally means concession and conciliation, and compromise in this sense differentiates the compromise contract from all the legal actions serving a basis for compromise.

Although most Sunni jurisprudents and scholars often associate compromise only with disputes and dispute resolution, according to the Imamiyyah jurisprudence, there is no need for a history or background of dispute for the realization of compromise, and our civil code has rightfully followed this perspective, and Article 752 of the Civil Code reflects the same view.

This paper addresses the payment of consideration, often a negotiated financial sum, in exchange for intellectual property and compromise contracts in order to clarify whether the legal nature of such a payment can be described and analyzed in the form of a compromise contract.

To this end, first, the concept of compromise is discussed followed by a discussion of the conditions and terms prevailing compromise contracts in order to determine the scope of such contracts.

Finally, considering the nature of intellectual property rights, we investigate whether the payment of consideration for intellectual property can be described and analyzed in the form of a compromise contract.

It is worth mentioning that compromise can be divided into various categories in terms of different aspects.

For instance, compromise contracts, depending on the existence or absence of consideration, are divided into bilateral contracts and bare contracts.

As a case in point, the legislator in Article 757 of the Civil Code refers to bare contracts.

This suggests that bare/gratuitous contracts represent a legal concept in Iran’s law.

Nevertheless, the focus of the present study is on bilateral contracts.