Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am interested in starting a business selling a product and an aid to selling my product would be Excel templates that I created.  Could I possibly sell these templates on a USB drive with my product and not violate patents or create a situation where I could be liable to Microsoft for damages?  In order for the customer to benefit from my product, they would need Microsoft Office, so this would in part be a win for Microsoft. 

If I understand your post, the templates you`d be creating would only run under Excel. Ergo, the buyer must already have purchased Excel and paid for the license. The template you create is basically just content. Unless you copy a template or spreadsheet created by someone else, I don`t see how anyone could claim there`s a patent problem...unless you`re using copyrighted information in the templates.

I`m NOT an attorney, just using logic, so you should check with an intellectual property attorney before making a final commitment to the business idea.

It sounds like you understand what I am getting at Craig.  These would be templates created in Excel from scratch.  However, I would be selling a product that needs the template to operate.  I read on the Microsoft website and it sounds like I might need a licensing agreement, however I am still not sure on that.  Thanks for your reply!

I see Excel templates for sale all the time. If you do a search, I`m sure you`ll find them too. I don`t see why selling a template created for use in Excel would be any different than selling a graphics template made for use in Dreamweaver or Indesign.

—paula

Excellent point, Paula. And to extend that, why would I pay Kodak a licensing fee for each picture I take then sell to someone?