The document discusses patenting inventions related to outer space activities. It provides background on patents and defines outer space inventions. It then discusses the history of space exploration and key international space law treaties. The document also outlines India's space program and legislation. It notes that while India has signed international treaties, comprehensive national space law is not yet in place. The only existing frameworks relate to satellites, remote sensing, and technology transfer. A new regulatory body called IN-SPACe is expected to help facilitate coordination of India's growing space activities.

1. PATENTING THE INVENTION IN THE
OUTER SPACE
Presented by:
Kshiti Nim
USLLS,GGSIPU
LLM (Regular)

2. INTRODUCTION
• WHAT IS THE MEANING OF PATENT?
-A patent is a part of ‘intellectual property’ that gives its
proprietor the lawful right to exclude others from making, using,
or selling an invention for a limited period in exchange for
publishing, allowing public disclosure of the invention. World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)” has defined a patent as
an “exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product
or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing
something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem. The
protection conferred by the patent is limited in time generally 20

3. • WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY OUTER SPACE INVENTIONS?
-Invention means “the act or operation of finding out something new or we
can say the process of contriving and producing something not previously
known or existing, by the exercise of independent investigation and
experiment of the article or contrivance or composition so invented”
-An outer space is all the space surrounding ‘our planet Earth’. It is where
objects can move without artificial propulsion systems. Space law can be
pronounced as an area of the laws governing activities in the outer space that
are relevant to national and international law but internationally there is no
said definition of the term “outer space”, although most assumption are that
the outer space generally begins at the ‘lowest altitude above sea level’ at
which objects can orbit the Earth, approximately 100 km (60 miles).
-There has been a surge in intellectual property matters regarding extra-
terrestrial activities. The reason for the rapid evolution is that most space
activities are shifting to private or commercially possessed expeditions rather

4. HISTORY
We have been venturing into space since October 4, 1957, when the’ Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics’ (U.S.S.R.) launched Sputnik , the ‘first artificial satellite’ to orbit
Earth. This happened during the time of political hostility between the ‘Soviet Union’
and the ‘United States’ known as the “Cold War”. For several years, the two
superpowers had been rival to advance missiles, called ‘intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs)’, to carry nuclear weapons between continents. In the ‘U.S.S.R’., the
rocket designer ‘Sergei Korolev’ had developed the first ‘ICBM’, a rocket called the
‘R7’, which would begin the space race . In 1958, ‘space exploration activities’ in the
United States were consolidated into a ‘new government agency’, the ‘National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’. When it began operations in October
of 1958, ‘NASA’ absorbed what had been called the ‘National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics (NACA)’, and several other research and military facilities, including the
‘Army Ballistic Missile Agency (the Redstone Arsenal)’ in ‘Huntsville’ . Since then,
many creations have been done and many humans has reached out of the space. Also

5. INTERNATIONAL SPACE LAW TREATIES
• Outer Space Treaty,1967
• Rescue Agreement,1986
• Liability Convention,1972
• Registration Convention,1957
• Moon Agreement,1979

6. SPACE LEGISLATION IN INDIA
• After gaining independence from the British in 1947, India's space programme was born in
1962. The programme got its first stimulus in 1969 with the founding of the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO). The Indian government established the Space Commission of
India (the Space Commission) and the Department of Space (DOS) in mid-1972 and brought the
ISRO under the management of the DOS in September 1972. India launched its first satellite in
1975. Since then, India's space sector has come a long way.
• With respect to India though it is a signatory to the Moon Treaty 1979, although it was not
ratified until 1982 and also approved other four treaties, in accumulation to two more related
treaties, namely, ‘Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, outer space and
under water’ and ‘Convention on the prohibition of military or any other hostile use of
environmental modification techniques’, comprehensive national space law, and procedure
regulating the operation of space activities undertaken by private and public sector, is not yet
in place.
• The only regulatory framework governing the space industry in India is determined by the
Satellite Communication Policy, 1997, the revised Remote Sensing Data Policy, 2011, the
Technology Transfer Policy’ of ISRO, and the Constitution of India, 1950.
• A new organisation called ‘Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre’ (IN-
SPACe) which is expected to be functional by December 2020.

7. INTELLECTUAL PROERTY RIGHT LAWS FOR SPACE
ACTIVITIES IN INDIA
• The Patents Act 1970, along with the Patents Rules 1972, came into force on 20th April 1972, replacing
the Indian Patents and Designs Act 1911.
• The Patents Act was mainly based on the references of the ‘Ayyangar Committee Report’ headed by
‘Justice N. Rajagopala Ayyangar.’
• India became signatory to many international arrangements with an objective of “strengthening its
patent law and coming in league with the modern world”.
• One of the significant steps towards achieving this objective was becoming the member of the ‘Trade
Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)’ system.
• India also became signatory of the ‘Paris Convention’ and the ‘Patent Cooperation Treaty’ on 7th
December 1998 and thereafter signed the ‘Budapest Treaty’ on 17th December 2001
• ISRO has been investing in developing a IPR portfolio.

8. • One of the major barriers in the working of ISRO is India’s poor electronic manufacturing ecosystem.
The absence of a robust home-grown electronics market leads to a huge import of spacecraft
components, which in turn increases the cost of operations considerably.
• Most important thing is that ‘space law in India is that having successfully demonstrated their
implicational capabilities now the Indian space activities have become vastly diversified and have
come to stay’. Hence to facilitate inter-departmental coordination it is important to make legal norm
related to space inventions.