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Free-and-open source software is ubiquitous today. The decentralised, distributed, and collaborative model of software development thrives on the creation of certain freedoms for and restrictions on its participants. A cornerstone of creating those freedoms concerns intellectual property rights which in the case of software primarily reside in copyrights and patents. The inherent exclusionary nature of these rights promotes aggregation and creation of private enclosures which may not be appropriated without consent of the rightsholder. With respect to intellectual property in general, and patents in particular, these characteristics have been regularly exercised and also have been limited in their reach. In doing so, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has devised the doctrine of patent exhaustion which dissipates certain rights of the rightsholder in favour of Union interests, namely fulfilment of the Treaty objectives. On the other hand, the free-and-open-source movement essentially rests on private and viral mechanisms of the various open source licences which morph the exclusionary nature of these rights into a more inclusionary form. Taken together with the doctrine of exhaustion, a synergy is easily seen. However, the situation might not be as straightforward when patents are concerned which until recently have been – for the substantive part – fragmented in the Union. The research aims to bring forward this interaction between the hitherto developed doctrine of patent exhaustion by the CJEU, the nature of patent rights in the Union which did not have a community regime until recently, and the effect of this interaction on fOSS licencing. To do so, first the empirical prevalence of fOSS and their various licence-types in the European Union is brought forth which aids in setting the factual basis for the thesis. Additionally, the importance of fOSS for/in various Union legislative and policy instruments is described together with a brief exposition on their enforcement sofar in the Union. Thereafter, a descriptive section brings forth the jurisprudence of the CJEU with respect to patent exhaustion culminating with the contemporary UsedSoft judgement. Eventually, the shortcoming of UsedSoft when applied to patents is evaluated. Lastly, as a possible solution to those shortcomings, the thesis advocates - under a novel doctrinal analysis - firstly for the application of the common law doctrine of implied patent licence. Thereafter, it is proposed that the hitherto doctrine be extended insofar it fulfils the policy and legislative goals of the European Union. At the same time, a limitation is introduced by providing - under the above analysis - an application of international patent standards which can inject more flexibility while at the same time providing for a balance with and possibly preservation of the fOSS environment.