Q: Can a thirdparty own part of an asset under an LLC without owning part of the LLC ?
I'm building 2 software products with 1 partner. We want to house both products under one LLC. For one of the products we reached an agreement for distribution with a third party, but the third party wants part ownership to that software since they'll be playing a key role in how we develop and distribute it. Our first choice is to avoid creating a separate LLC for that product so would it be possible to allocate part ownership to the third party for just that sole product under our LLC?
A: There are a variety of options for sharing intellectual property rights. The existence of an LLC is not necessary. You don't even have to share ownership of the existing LLC. It is easy enough to allocate profits and losses from the sale and distribution of a product in a written agreement, or to assign copyrights in whole or in part.
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