Patent Landscaping for India's Space-Tech Startups: Identifying IP Risk Across Launch, Satellites, and Ground Systems

Introduction : India’s journey into space has expanded rapidly since the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (“IN-SPACe”) was established in June 2022 to license and authorise non-governmental space at scale. This shift is happening because of a mix of things; more support from government policies and a growing understanding that space technology can help solve problems we face here on the Earth.

Indian startups are working to make space more affordable and easier to access, so that the benefits reach more people and businesses. Space-tech startups are young, innovative companies dedicated to building and commercializing technology for space exploration, utilization, or services that depend on space-based infrastructure. Unlike traditional aerospace giants or government space agencies, these startups are typically fast-moving, entrepreneurial, and focused on making space more accessible and useful for a wider audience. A key turning point came in 2020 when the Indian government liberalised the space sector, allowing private players and startups to actively participate in satellite launches, space missions, and the development of space technologies.

Government initiatives such as Startup India, Atal Innovation Mission, ISRO’s IN-SPACe and NSIL have offered startups the financial backing, mentorship, and infrastructure needed to succeed in this complex industry. India’s startup ecosystem has evolved into one of the world's largest market place, most dynamic and innovative sectors, attracting entrepreneurs across industries like technology, healthcare, and agriculture. As of 2024 India has 110 unicorns where none of them are space startups. In the last 10 years, the Indian space exploration domain has seen 200 times increase in engagement from Indian startups. The space startups not only enhance India’s space capabilities but also play a crucial role in driving the sector toward commercialization.

The ecosystem benefits from venture capital investments and global partnerships, boosting India’s position in the global space economy. Through these collaborations, Indian startups are now making advancements in satellite communications, launch vehicles and even interplanetary exploration. Indian space industry, were also used to supplement the primary data. It's important to note that the data presented in this paper is solely based on the authors' findings. After data collection, all interviews were systematically coded using an inductive approach. This process involved reading the transcripts multiple times to identify recurring themes and patterns relevant to space entrepreneurship in India.

The coding process identified several key incubation practices, which were grouped into categories reflecting the core principles and challenges of space entrepreneurship in India. These practices were then connected to three main design principles for launching and incubating space businesses in the country, based on recurring themes of funding mechanisms, regulatory frameworks, and support schemes and programs.

Legal Provisions

A. The Indian Space Policy, 2023 and IN-SPACe Authorisation

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released the Indian Space Policy 2023 that had been in the works for some years. The policy has been welcomed as a progression towards India’s entry in a New Space age. However, it needs to be followed up with suitable legislation, accompanied by clear rules and regulations. Until the early 1990s, India’s space industry and space economy were defined by ISRO. Private sector involvement was limited to building to ISRO designs and specifications. The Indian Space Policy 2023 unveils the government’s plan to let private enterprises carry out end-to-end activities - from launching satellites and rockets into space to operating Earth stations. he policy creates four distinct, but related entities, that will facilitate greater private sector participation in activities that have usually been the traditional domain of the ISRO.

InSPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre): It will be a single window clearance and authorisation agency for space launches, establishing launch pads, buying and selling satellites, and disseminating high-resolution data among other things. It will also share technologies, products, processes and best practices with NGEs (non-government entities and this will include private companies) and government companies. IN-SPACe will create a “stable and predictable regulatory framework” that will ensure a level playing field for the NGEs. It will act as a promoter by setting up industry clusters and as the regulator, issue guidelines on liability issues.

New Space India Limited (NSIL): It will be responsible for commercialising space technologies and platforms created through public expenditure, as well as, manufacturing, leasing, or procuring space components, technologies, platforms and other assets from the private or public sector.

Department of Space: It will provide overall policy guidelines and be the nodal department for implementing space technologies and, among other things, co-ordinate international cooperation and coordination in the area of global space governance and programmes in consultation with the Ministry of External Affairs. It will also create an appropriate mechanism to resolve disputes arising out of space activity.

Rationalising the role of ISRO: It states that ISRO will “transition out of the existing practice of being present in the manufacturing of operational space systems.

Hereafter, mature systems shall be transferred to industries for commercial usage. ISRO shall focus on R&D in advanced technology, proving newer systems and realisation of space objects for meeting national prerogatives”. ISRO will share technologies, products, processes and best practices with other government and non-government companies. This will make ISRO use its all its strength on cutting edge research and development and long-term projects such as Chandrayaan and Gaganyaan.

Private Sector’s Role: The NGEs (this includes the private sector) are “allowed to undertake end-to-end activities in the space sector through establishment and operation of space objects, ground-based assets and related services, such as communication, remote sensing, navigation, etc.”Satellites could be self-owned, procured or leased; communication services could be over India or outside; and remote sensing data could be disseminated in India or abroad. NGEs can design and operate launch vehicles for space transportation and establish their own infrastructure. NGEs can now make filings with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and engage in commercial recovery of asteroid resources.

In short, the entire gamut of space activities is now open to the private sector. Security agencies can task NGEs for procuring tailor-made solutions to address specific requirements.

B. Secrecy Directions and Foreign Filing Restrictions Under the Patents Act, 1970

Secrecy directions and foreign filing restrictions under the “The Patents Act, 1970” are legal safeguards designed to protect national security and strategic defense asset.

A secrecy direction U/S 35 applies when the Controller of Patents concludes that an invention is relevant for defence purposes. This conclusion can arise in two ways. The Central Government maintains a list of notified invention categories considered defence-relevant, and when an application falls within a notified class, the Controller acts on that notification. Where an application does not fall within any notified class but the invention still appears, based on the Controller’s assessment of defence relevance from the material available, to be defence-relevant, the Controller may issue a direction.

Although governed separately under Section 39 (Chapter VI rather than Chapter VII), the foreign filing restriction is inseparable from secrecy direction compliance in practice. A resident of India cannot file a patent application outside India for the same invention unless one of two conditions is met: either an application was filed in India at least six weeks before the foreign filing and no secrecy direction is in force, or the Controller has granted written permission via a foreign filing licence.

The permission request must be made in writing to the Controller in the prescribed manner. The Controller must dispose of it within 21 days from the date of filing (Rule 71). Where the invention relates to defence or atomic energy, the Controller cannot grant permission without the prior consent of the Central Government. Section 39 does not apply to an invention for which a person resident outside India first filed abroad before any Indian application was made.

Section 40 treats any violation of a secrecy direction under Section 35, or any foreign filing made in contravention of Section 39, as deemed abandonment of the Indian patent application. A patent already granted on that application becomes liable to revocation under Section 64. The civil consequences arise automatically from the contravention, with no further order required.

The criminal exposure under Section 118 is independent and additive. A person who violates Section 35 directions or contravenes Section 39 faces imprisonment for a term extending to two years, a fine, or both. Civil and criminal liability can therefore arise from the same act. The statute does not expressly provide a de minimis threshold or a good-faith defence, though courts retain their inherent jurisdiction to consider intent in appropriate cases.

C. Export Control: The SCOMET Regime

SCOMET mainly controls exports. But importers are affected too, through catch-all provisions, End-User Certificate (EUC) obligations, the WMD Act 2005, and re-export restrictions. If you import dual-use raw materials and re-export finished products, SCOMET applies on your outbound shipment.

D. The Outer Space Treaty, 1967

India is a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, 1967, Article II of which prohibits national appropriation of outer space by claim of sovereignty, and Article VI of which makes the State internationally responsible for national space activities, whether carried on by governmental or non-governmental entities. Patent law's grant of an exclusive right to an invention sits uneasily against this framework, particularly for inventions conceived or reduced to practice on board a spacecraft, and the tension has not been legislatively resolved in India.

Legal Analysis

Ownership Under Government Contracts and Authorisation

The clearest illustration of India's unresolved ownership question is the Draft Space Activities Bill, 2017, which proposed vesting all intellectual property arising from space activity carried out under it in the Central Government. Industry criticism centred on the chilling effect this would have on private investment, and the Bill was never enacted. Its underlying premise, however that IP arising from state-authorised or state-facilitated space work may not straightforwardly belong to the private party that created it has not been displaced by the 2023 Policy or by IN-SPACe's authorisation framework, neither of which contains a comprehensive IP-ownership clause. A patent landscape must therefore trace, invention by invention, whether the underlying work was performed under an ISRO or NSIL development contract, using authorised access to ISRO facilities, or independently, since each pathway carries a different ownership risk profile.

The Publication-Timing Conflict

Ordinary patent prosecution assumes that early filing and eventual publication (18 months from priority, under Section 11A of the Patents Act, 1970) serve the applicant's interest. For space sector inventions touching defence-relevant categories, that assumption breaks down. A Section 35 secrecy direction can restrict publication or communication of the invention altogether, and a Section 39 foreign filing license must be secured with potential referral to the Central Government where defence or atomic energy is implicated before any foreign or PCT filing is made, regardless of ordinary PCT deadlines. A landscape exercise has to flag, for each technology cluster, whether patenting is even the correct protection strategy, or whether trade secrecy better serves an invention that the applicant may not be free to disclose or file abroad on the applicant's own timeline.

C. Domain-by-Domain Sensitivity

Applying this framework across the sector's core verticals produces a differentiated risk map. Launch vehicle propulsion and guidance technologies carry the highest overlap with SCOMET categories and the greatest likelihood of Section 35/39 engagement. Satellite bus architecture and ground infrastructure mission control software, telemetry, tracking and command systems are comparatively low-sensitivity and internationally well-precedented, making them the more straightforward domains for conventional filing. Satellite payload technology and remote-sensing sensors sit in between, and remote-sensing additionally raises a separate, non-patent question of data-ownership rights under India's Remote Sensing Data Policy, which a patent landscape alone will not resolve.

Relevant Case Laws

A case law example of India pertaining to the topic in question is Garware Wall Ropes Ltd. v. A.I. Chopra, Engineers & Contractors and Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd., 2009 (111) Bom LR 479 (Bombay High Court). The point is that in the above case, the patentee Garware Wall Ropes sought an injunction against the contractor who had been manufacturing and supplying the patented systems of Garware Wall Ropes to Konkan Railway, a government undertaking, on the basis of the contract executed by the President of India; the contractor appealed that he was protected by the government-use exemption of Section 47 of the Patents Act, nevertheless, the Bombay High Court ruled that though "the government's own use" described in Section 47 is less broad than "use for purposes of government" in Section 100, but nevertheless, according to Section 100, such use will require the written authorization of the government and payment of adequate remuneration to the patentee under Section 100(3), and Section 156 clearly states that a patent binds the Government in the same way as it binds anyone else.

This example is highly relevant to your space tech IP topic, since it is one of the closest precedents of India with regard to the problem mentioned in your Beyond Elevation source concerning weakening patent rights of the startups via government contracts (Indian equivalent of Bayh-Dole march-in/unlimited rights issue); the point is that it proves that in case of the space startup's patented system being supplied/utilized by the government space-related company (ISRO/Antrix/IN-SPACE) via the contract, the government use exemption is not enough to provide a complete immunity to the government entity and the startup is entitled to get the written authorization and receive the royalties, provided that the contract will be drafted accordingly; thus, it becomes a logical fourth pillar after Ferid Allani (patent eligibility of technical software), Brady (trade secret protection of confidential know-how), and Devas v. Antrix (litigation risks in government-linked space contracts), since it deals with the statutory limitations on the government use of the patented inventions.

Puneet Kaushik & Anr. v. Union of India, W.P. (C) No. 1631 of 2013 (Delhi High Court) The Delhi High Court held that a Patent Cooperation Treaty international application filed from India is a "foreign application" for the purposes of Section 39, and that the Indian Patent Office cannot process such an application without a foreign filing license or the lapse of the statutory sixweek period. The judgment forecloses any argument that the PCT route bypasses Section 39, confirming that compliance must precede filing rather than follow it a sequencing point that is easy to miss in a fast-moving space-tech filing programme with parallel domestic and international counsel.

Practical Implications

Investor Diligence

For an investor evaluating an Indian space-tech target, the patent landscape should be built to answer four questions rather than to simply catalogue filings: whether the core technology is unencumbered by a residual government-ownership claim arising from an ISRO/NSIL contract or IN-SPACe-authorised facility use; whether portfolio gaps in sensitive technology clusters reflect a deliberate trade-secrecy strategy under Section 35 or simply thinner underlying IP than represented; whether SCOMET classification constrains who can license, acquire, or be assigned the technology, which bears directly on deal structure and permissible counterparties; and whether foreign filings that the company claims to hold were, in fact, preceded by a valid Section 39 foreign filing license an omission that, per Puneet Kaushik, is not curable after the fact and can expose an otherwise valuable foreign patent to abandonment or revocation risk.

Licensing Strategy

Licensing decisions should track the same domain-by-domain sensitivity map. Ground-segment software and low-sensitivity satellite-bus components are reasonable candidates for conventional licensing, including cross-border licensing, largely unencumbered beyond ordinary patent law. Propulsion, launch, and sensitive payload technologies require export-control and Section 35/39 clearance built into the licence structure from the outset, including end-use restrictions and, where applicable, Central Government notification. Remote-sensing licences additionally need to separate patent rights in the sensor from data rights in the imagery it produces, since the two are governed by different legal regimes and a licensee acquiring one does not automatically acquire the other.

Conclusion

India's private space sector is expanding faster than the legal framework meant to govern its intellectual property. In the absence of a comprehensive space activities law, patent landscaping for this sector cannot be reduced to a prior-art search: it must trace ownership through government contracts and IN-SPACe authorisation, anticipate Section 35 secrecy directions and Section 39 foreign filing obligations before they derail a filing programme, and account for SCOMET export control restrictions that operate independently of patent-office timelines. Done with this layered approach, a landscape becomes genuinely useful both for a startup's own filing and protection strategy, and for anyone conducting diligence before committing capital or entering a licence.

Author :- Manisha Raj, in case of any query, contact us at Global Patent Filing or write back us via email at support@globalpatentfiling.com.

Endnotes

1. Patents Act, 1970, s. 35 (India).
2. Patents Act, 1970, s. 39 (India).
3. Patents Act, 1970, s. 40 (India).
4. Patents Act, 1970, s. 64(1)(n) (India).
5. Patents Act, 1970, s. 100 (India).
6. Patents Act, 1970, s. 118 (India).
7. Patents Act, 1970, s. 11A (India).
8. Outer Space Treaty, 1967, arts. II, VI.
9. Indian Space Policy, 2023, Government of India, Department of Space.
10. Draft Space Activities Bill, 2017 (India) (unenacted).
11. Foreign Trade Policy, Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (SCOMET) List (India).
12. https://www.casemine.com/judgement/in/56ea78c1607dba369a6f0154
13. Puneet Kaushik & Anr. v. Union of India, W.P. (C) No. 1631 of 2013 (Delhi High Court, India).
14. KPMG, Foreign Direct Investment in Indian Space Sector (Mar. 2024).