The Applicability of Sale of Goods Act to Copyright Licenses

The article analyses the scope of the Finnish Sale of Goods Act in relation to intellectual property rights, focusing on copyright licenses that partially transfer or lease such rights. The research is based on an analysis of the scarce legal literature relevant to the subject and a comparison of this basis with recent case law, specifically the Finnish supreme court judgment KKO 2022:44, in which the court recognised the application of the Sale of Goods Act to a license. The objective of this article is to clarify the legal framework governing licenses as legal acts and to offer new perspectives based on recent case law. At the time of writing, the aforementioned case has not been extensively evaluated from this perspective, hence the article aims to highlight its potential interpretations. Given the increasing importance of licensing in modern information society, identifying the applicable norms to these legal acts is an important objective.The article analyses the scope of the Finnish Sale of Goods Act in relation to intellectual property rights, focusing on copyright licenses that partially transfer or lease such rights. The research is based on an analysis of the scarce legal literature relevant to the subject and a comparison of this basis with recent case law, specifically the Finnish supreme court judgment KKO 2022:44, in which the court recognised the application of the Sale of Goods Act to a license. The objective of this article is to clarify the legal framework governing licenses as legal acts and to offer new perspectives based on recent case law. At the time of writing, the aforementioned case has not been extensively evaluated from this perspective, hence the article aims to highlight its potential interpretations. Given the increasing importance of licensing in modern information society, identifying the applicable norms to these legal acts is an important objective