The Guide is designed to address the practical business needs and concerns of non-specialists who are required to deal with "licensing in" or "licensing out" technology, be it directly or indirectly. The Manual focuses on the process of due diligence while preparing for negotiations, and steps involved in actual negotiation, acquisition and transfer, through licensing agreements, of technologies protected by patent and trade secrets. It provides guidance on negotiating techniques for licensing contracts and explains in clear and concise terms a number of basic rules, common issues and legal and financial concerns associated with the negotiating process, and illustrates these with a very large number of examples. It also includes an outline of a program schedule and practical guidelines for creating and managing teams/groups for conducting mock negotiations during a five-day practical workshop on negotiating technology licenses.

The aim of the manual and toolkit is to enable the assessment of training needs for organizations involved with intellectual property management, technology transfer and commercialization/utilization. This manual and toolkit supports readers with limited knowledge of training needs to identify gaps in skills and competencies and to design effective training programs.