Intellectual Properties Derived in Space Exploration: Issues and Scopes

Abstract

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) encourage creators by providing legal protection to their creations and by giving
scope to make monetary profit. Even though most of the human endeavours and creative fields have recently fallen under
the purview of intellectual property rights, space exploration, a significant area of human exploration, remains in direct
conflict with IPR regulations. The lack of a legal IP regime for developed space technologies hardly encourages investors to invest the required large sums in such endeavors. It is acknowledged that the Space Treaty of 1967 places limitations on the creation of territorial intellectual property laws for space exploration; nonetheless, agreements like the Convention on the High Seas-1958 and the Registration Convention-1975 provide some avenues for achieving this.The paper examines the current state of space intellectual property regulations and puts forward some propositions on how this issue can be resolved. The paper also engages a study on India’s response for adopting a Space IP Bill and highlights how this bill ignores about the IP rights of space agencies and other private investors while adhering to the Space Treaty's regulations and prioritizing national security concerns.