PROTECTING THE SPACE INDUSTRY
ESA develops a vast array of innovative, highly sophisticated technologies and applications to make Europe’s space endeavours happen. When ESA staff are involved in devising an innovation or invention, then the agency is free to apply for a patent.
Each year, ESA patents around 10 to 20 inventions. The resulting portfolio of around 530 applications and successful patents is overseen by ESA’s Patents Group, managed by the Technology Transfer and Patents Office.
Patent protection is important because it prevents others claiming credit for ESA’s work; it allows European companies to make use of them free of charge; and it reinforces ESA’s position when cross-licensing intellectual property — the exchange of licenses with other patent holders.
ESA’s intellectual property portfolio is available to European space companies within its 22 Member States on a freely-licensed basis. For companies in non-ESA Member States, or for non-space applications, the Agency uses a different licensing model and requests royalties.
To help promote the use of ESA’s intellectual property, our patent portfolio is available in an online catalogue. It includes a wide range of applications, including radio-frequency payloads and systems, structures and pyrotechnics, electromagnetic technologies and techniques, material and processes, robotics, optics, electrical power and propulsion.
Prominent examples of ESA patents that have been taken up by industry include the DVB-S2 standard, used for the transmission and reception of broadcast data, the non-invasive millimetre-wave scanner for security body scans and a method for compression and analysis of telemetry data.
