Back to Blog

How Does a Design Licensing Agreement Work?

At Design Pool, we realize people work differently and aim to make using our designs as easy for interior designers as possible. That’s why our library is unique in that patterns are licensable and not individually for sale. We partner with digital printers we trust and have a licensing agreement in place with each partner. This arrangement makes it easy for interior designers to use our patterns without adding any additional costs to the materials they order. In order to explain how this works, it helps to understand a few basic terms. 

What is a licensing agreement?

According to Investopedia’s dictionary, “A licensing agreement allows one party (the licensee) to use and/or earn revenue from the property of the owner (the licensor). Licensing agreements generate revenues, called royalties, earned by a company for allowing its copyrighted or patented material to be used by another company.”

To clarify, the licensee is our printing partner. The licensor is us!  

What is a royalty? 

Investopedia again, “A royalty is an amount paid by a third party to an owner of a product or patent for the use of that product or patent. The terms of royalty payments are laid out in a licensing agreement.”

That means our printers are the ones paying us when they use one of our patterns on their products.  

What does this mean for the interior designer?

Not much! When interior designers want to use one of our patterns in a project, they place their order with one of our partners. With design licensing agreements already in place with all our partners, it makes ordering from them super easy. Interior designers don’t need to worry about licenses or royalties. All they need to focus on is which pattern to use and what color they need. Our printers pay the royalty, not the interior designer. Just place your order with the printer, and they take care of everything else. Easy!

Will these designs be exclusive to me?

No, none of the designs in our licensable library are exclusive. We have printers that work in different markets, such as flooring, privacy screens, textiles, and more. Anyone can work with any of our designs and print it on any product. They can even rescale it to be perfect for the product and interior.  If you are in need of an exclusive design, we do have options for you. First, you can buy a design from our proprietary collection. Once you buy a design, have it printed with your own printer or work with one of our partners. Alternately, you can work with our design team to create a custom pattern specifically for your project. 

Did we answer all your questions? If not, feel free to reach out. 

Share this post

Author

Kristin Crane

Kristin Crane has designed jacquard designs for the home furnishing and residential jobber market for many years, with mills in the US and in China. Today, she writes about pattern and design trends for Design Pool from her home in Providence, Rhode Island. When not writing about fabric, she can be found weaving in her home studio or hiking along the Rhode Island coast.

DESIGN/COLOR TRENDS AND AWESOME INFORMATION IN YOUR INBOX

Sign up for our monthly trend letter

Back to Blog