<IMO, NP has sold licenses for one or more of the their patents.>

Heheh, and RG must have signed an employment license instead......

OK, now you're going to bend to a "licensing agreement/clause" just to keep your point alive........It's not a hard concept. NP contractually outsourced a product for production and then sold that product to an OEM. There's no license involved, contracts yes, licenses no......

Selling a license will reduce or eliminate the need for in house design and/or having to outsource a product......

As it is, we're having enough trouble just trying to find out what exactly NP has sold........It doesn't look like much........