This paper aims to determine the factors that impact on the duration of technology licensing contracts. Using a transaction costs framework, we derive some propositions related to the influence of the contractual safeguards and of institutions on the failure rate of such agreements. We conduct an empirical investigation based on a new dataset of 250 contracts from the French National Institute of Intellectual Property. We show that the actual duration of licensing agreements (a) is positively associated to their profitability and to the level of technological competition, (b) is positively associated to the presence of a renegotiation clause, and (c) is independent of other contractual or institutional safeguards.