In Chinese intellectual property law, a License Contract is used to grant another party the right to share in its own exclusive rights to intangible property or the right to produce and sell products. License Contracts, often titled License Agreements are the main way by which technology is sold.

The parties to a license contract are the Licensor and the Licensee. There are three different types of contractual objects in a Chinese License Agreement, which can be a : patented technology, copyright, or trademark. Trademarks and patents in China are considered industrial property, which are exclusive technologies comprising intangible property not disclosed to the public at large.

There are several types of licenses that can be granted in a license contract: (1) A sole license, where only the Licensee is permitted to carry on the production, usage, and sale of the licensed object within the designated region. Third parties and licensors will not have any of these rights. (2) An exclusive license, where the licensee is permitted to produce, use, and sell the licensed object within a designated region, where no third party has such rights. (3) A non-exclusive license, where rights are granted to a third party, but the licensor still retains these rights.

Additional license contract options are available to control whether the technology can be given to a third party: (1) In an assignable license contract, the licensee is entitled to assign its rights under the contract to a third party in the designated region, constituting a non-exclusive license contract. (2) Under a non-assignable license contract, the licensee does not have the right to assign its rights in the technology to a third party. Furthermore, swap contracts are often used in China, involving the exchange of technology between parties without payment.