There are four types of licensing viz. in-licensing, out-licensing (spin off), licensing through merger and cross-licensing.

In-licensing means purchase or acquisition of intellectual property license from external business entity

Out-licensing means selling the license or part of it to external organisation. Spinning-off a new IP from an existing IP can also be out-licensed.

Licensing through merger means that when merger and acquisition takes place between two organisation which has complementary IP.

Cross-licensing takes place between two organisation when they decide to share each other's IP for mutual benefits.