Licensing is concentrated in selected industries.
About 80% of licensing deals occur in three industries, 46% in the chemical industry including drugs, 22% in the electronic and electrical equipment industry including semiconductors and 12% in the industrial machinery and equipment industry including computers.

Prior relationship is important to engage in licensing contracts.> About 30% of licensing deals are signed between parties having a prior relationship. This tendency is observed more in computer and electronic firms than in chemicals.

Exclusivity and restriction clauses are more common in chemical firms.
More than half of the deals in chemical involve some exclusivity clauses, which are less common in computers (18%) and electronics (16%). Restrictions such as field of use, geographic domain and contract length are more common in chemical (40%) than computers and electronics (30%).

Cross-licensing is frequently used in electronics.
Cross-licensing is more common in electronics (20%) than other industries (10%). This arrangement is observed more for transfers of technology not yet developed than ex-post transfers. This trend is also observed in Japan, indeed the ratio of cross-licence is about 90% in electronic industry. (JPO, 2004)