Often the person or the company that completes an invention does not have the possibility or the will to enforce the rights that derive from it; at the same time it is necessary to recover the huge resources employed in the research and the financing of the frenetic technological development that characterizes the modern society.
Many developing nations are in such a situation: they do not possess enough means to effect an independent research for reaching the technological progress of the industrialized countries.
The only way to have a legal possession, is to acquire licences from the owners of such technologies, by way of a licensing agreement. A licensing activity consists in granting to third parties the exploitation of patents to which you own the exclusive rights.