Put clear licensing terms behind your merchandise deals

You will usually need one when someone else wants to put your brand, artwork, character, logo, name or other creative asset onto products for sale, promotion or distribution. The agreement records the commercial rules around that use, including which items are allowed, whether the licence is exclusive, how approvals work and what payment model applies. Without that detail, it is easy for product ranges to expand beyond what was intended, or for arguments to arise about ownership, royalties or who signs off final designs.

Most merchandise licensing deals turn on a few practical points: what IP is being licensed, which product categories are permitted, where the goods can be sold, how long the licence lasts, whether sublicensing is allowed, and how royalties or minimum payments are calculated. Approval rights are also important, especially for packaging, samples, marketing copy and final artwork. A well-drafted agreement can also deal with stock sell-off after termination, quality control, infringement reporting and what happens if the relationship ends early.

The drafting usually depends on the asset being licensed, the types of merchandise involved, the parties in the deal and the commercial model you have agreed, or are still negotiating. For example, a short-run artist collaboration may need different approval mechanics from a long-term brand licensing arrangement across multiple product lines. If you already have a term sheet, email chain or draft from the other side, we can use that as the starting point. If not, we can help shape the key terms before the document is settled.

Timing depends on how much information is available at the outset and whether the commercial points are already agreed. If you have a clear brief or an existing draft, review can move faster than a matter where the licence structure still needs to be worked through. Delays often come from unresolved royalty terms, missing product details or back-and-forth with the other party. If any external approval is relevant, that sits outside this service, and If approval steps are relevant, we will explain what needs to be prepared and what sits outside the legal work..

No. The fixed-fee covers drafting or reviewing the merchandise licence agreement and advising on the legal wording and commercial issues in that document. It does not cover obtaining regulator approval, managing third-party sign-off, or acting for you on an ongoing basis after the agreement is delivered. If your merchandise touches a regulated area, approval depends on the relevant regulator or authority. Those requirements can differ depending on the product type and where it will be supplied, so separate steps may be needed outside the document work itself.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Merchandise Licence Agreement service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.