INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY-RIGHTS AND SPACE ACTIVITIES

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) raise a number of important legal questions with regard to space activities. These questions, which concern, for example, ownership of intellectual property, infringement of IPRs, sharing of IPRs, protection of data, and transfer of IPRs, have to be addressed before any international cooperative effort that can result in inventions or an infringement of IPRs can be implemented. A first analysis of the complex environment of the activities performed in Outer Space has been presented and discussed during the first ECSL/Spanish NPOC Workshop on IPRs in Outer Space, which was held in Madrid in May 1993. At that Workshop, the participants, who addressed the issues in the European context, expressed their interest in continuing the study and in broadening its scope beyond Europe. Consequently, a Second Workshop, even more international in scope, is being organised at ESA Headquarters in Paris at the end of 1994.