Short answer: there are essentially three SaaS channel models, referral, reseller, and OEM. The difference comes down to two questions: who sets the price to the end customer, and who collects the money. Get those two answers straight and the right agreement almost picks itself. I have done hundreds of
Short answer: in a software OEM agreement you cannot grant your customers more rights than your own upstream license gives you. So spell out exactly what rights survive termination. A case where SAP was sued under an OEM agreement makes the point. Here are three things every software company can
Short answer: which channel agreement you need turns on three questions: who pays you, who signs the end-user contract, and who provisions the service. Referral, reseller, distributor, and OEM agreements each answer those differently. I often get the question of which type of SaaS distribution agreement do I need: a
Short answer: a software referral agreement lives or dies on three things: exactly which referrals you pay on, how and when you pay, and whether both your partner and your own sales team can understand it. Get those right and most referral disputes never happen. While there are many different
Short answer: your SaaS reseller agreement or channel contract should address trademark use directly — a reseller can use your brand in its Google ads under the nominative-fair-use doctrine, but only if the product is actually for sale on the landing page and the ad does not imply a false
Short answer: Yes. The 2007 Leegin decision changed resale price maintenance software rules — overturning 96 years of law so that vendors can now influence what their distributors and resellers charge, in certain situations and within antitrust limits. Did you know the US Supreme Court changed software and SaaS distributor
Short answer: if you let a partner, reseller, or OEM use your trademark without a written license and without exercising real quality control, you can be found to have “naked licensed” the mark, and the penalty is losing it entirely. The fix is simple: a trademark license with quality-control obligations
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