Syllabus: GS3/Space
In News
- Human space activity highlights a clash between territorial patent law and multinational, collaborative innovation beyond any nation’s sovereignty.
Innovation in Space
- Human space habitation is becoming a practical reality, relying on continuous, collaborative technological innovation for survival, but this raises unresolved questions about who owns inventions created in space beyond national sovereignty.
Territorial Foundations of Patent Law
- Patent law is territorially based and Patent systems grant exclusive rights within national jurisdictions.
- Infringement is assessed by locating where acts like making or using an invention occur.
- This works on Earth because innovation happens within clearly defined territorial boundaries.
Applicability in space
- Outer space disrupts territorial logic and International space law prohibits national sovereignty over celestial bodies.
- However, states retain jurisdiction over space objects they register.
- Under Article VIII of the Outer Space Treaty, legal jurisdiction follows registration, not physical location.
Present status
- An invention made aboard a registered space object is treated as occurring within the registering state.
- This approach extends domestic patent law into space by legal fiction.
- It has become the default method for governing IP in space.
- The International Space Station (ISS) assigns jurisdiction module by module based on contributing states.
- Each module is treated as national territory for IP purposes.
- Lunar and Martian bases will likely lack clearly defined national zones, with multinational teams jointly improving shared systems, making jurisdiction over innovation uncertain.
| Do you know? – Article I of the Outer Space Treaty frames outer space as a domain to be explored and used for the benefit of all humankind. – Article II reinforces this vision by prohibiting any form of national appropriation of celestial bodies, including the moon. – Article VIII of the Outer Space Treaty and the Registration Convention together stipulate that legal jurisdiction attaches to the state of registry of a space object, not to the physical location where activities occur. – Article 5 of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property is concerned with the doctrine of temporary presence. a. It limits patent enforcement in the public interest to ensure patented articles in transit are not treated as infringing. On the earth, this provision preserves freedom of transport across borders. |
Challenges and Issues
- Space innovation is highly collaborative and multinational, yet patent jurisdiction is determined by registration rather than actual contributions, creating a disconnect between innovation practice and patent law.
- The Outer Space Treaty ensures space benefits all humanity and forbids national claims, but patents, while not territorial, can grant exclusive control over essential technologies, potentially restricting access and functioning as de facto exclusion in permanently inhabited space.
- Patent enforcement in space is fragmented and unclear, potentially restricting access to essential technologies and creating legal uncertainty, as doctrines like temporary presence may not apply.
- Registration-based jurisdiction encourages strategic exploitation, similar to maritime “flags of convenience,” risking weakened patent protection.
- Globally, few states shape the system, coordination mechanisms exist but lack legal authority, and proposals for specialized space IP frameworks are emerging, leaving most countries as rule-takers in a governance system mismatched with collaborative, shared space environments.
Suggestions and Way Forward
- Patent law, built on territorial boundaries, struggles to govern innovation in outer space where collaboration, shared infrastructure, and non‑appropriation principles dominate.
- Therefore, a specialised international IP framework may be needed to prevent exclusion and ensure equitable access to survival technologies in space.
Source :TH
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