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What are FRENS?
FRENS is an acronym of Fair, Reasonable, Ethical, & Non-Discriminatory Sublicense (FRENS), another adhesion contract for Molecules.
FRENS, still under development and with no certain release date, are intended to be an ethical governance layer for IP pools based on FRAND licensing.
You can read the "hello world" post about FRENS at the link below.
FRENS can be attached to any IP-NFT in order to offer a novel way to support open-access R&D, freedom to operate, and decentralized IP management through a limited sublicense.
The FRENS license is conveyed through a standard limited-scope IP license term in the model FRENS agreement with a governance clause granting FRENS token holders rights to participate in the co-management of the parent IP-NFT’s commercialization and commercial ethics. The FRENS template also includes standard anti-troll protections–akin to the springing license technology used by the LOT Network, of which Molecule, Coinbase, and Opensea are all members, to protect from IP trolls.
The limited-scope license in the FRENS agreement provides a simple right to “use” and “offer to sell”, which grants FRENS holders a right to use the IP, to access underlying data, and to participate in offering the parent IP-NFT for commercial licensing.
FRENS holders do not receive any other rights (e.g. rights to make, sell, or import), they do not have any ownership interest or ability to control the IP, and they do they receive any other equitable rights in the underlying IP, including rights to royalties.
In addition to serving as a sublicense, FRENS can function as a utility token granting holders access to governance platforms and to bounty boards, which can be used to incentivize work towards certain research milestones.
The utility of FRENS is in helping to co-develop research, to bring DeSci ethics into IP, and to experiment with ways to collectively manage IP inside an IP Commons.
It is important to reiterate that FRENS is still under development with no certain release date.