Australian companies are developing spacecraft designed to service other spacecraft, but Australian patent law may not protect what they invent or do in orbit.
By Julius Melnitzer | October 26, 2026
In March 2024, a 270-kilogram spacecraft called Optimus lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
Designed and built by Adelaide’s Space Machines Company, it was the largest commercial satellite Australia had produced. It was built to do something new: approach other satellites, inspect them, extend their working lives, move them and reduce the debris accumulating in orbit.
But as Australian companies develop technology to move, inspect and repair spacecraft, a fundamental question remains unresolved: who owns the work they perform, and anything developed in the course of it, once it is in orbit?
The issue matters because what these companies sell is not just hardware. Increasingly, it is a service performed beyond the reach of Australian patent law.
Orbit is increasingly crowded. The European Space Agency estimates there are around 54,000 objects larger than 10 centimetres in space, as well as millions of smaller fragments. Only the larger tracked objects can be removed. The rest must be avoided.
Australian companies are responding to the need for spacecraft servicing and manoeuvrability. Space Machines Company is developing satellite servicing capabilities, while Neumann Space focuses on propulsion and manoeuvrability. HEO’s cameras, one of which was aboard Optimus, captures images of objects already in space.
Griffith Hack patent and trade mark attorney Mitchell Stott and Principal Christian Schieber, a patent and trade mark attorney, work in the aerospace sector. Their work includes filing patents for international aerospace companies such as ThrustMe, which conducted the first demonstration of iodine-fuelled electric propulsion in space.
“Orbit manoeuvrability is quite important for spacecraft that have to avoid the junk already in space that cannot be removed,” Stott says.
The Treaty doesn’t answer the question
The instinctive place to look is the Outer Space Treaty. But it contains no intellectual property provisions.
The difficulty is that the Treaty’s foundational principle, that space is not subject to national appropriation, is hard to reconcile with extending national property law into orbit. This is one reason no international IP regime for space has emerged in nearly 60 years.
What the Treaty does deal with is jurisdiction. It mandates that the state registering a space object retains jurisdiction and control over it. The law of the state of registry travels with the object, as does the liability.
“The Outer Space Treaty, however, tells you only who is responsible for the object in orbit,” Schieber says. “It does not tell you who owns an invention made on board.”
Where national law reaches, and where Australia’s stops
The United States is the only country that has generally extended its patent law to its own space objects. Under legislation enacted in 1990, an invention made, used or sold in outer space on an object under US jurisdiction or control is treated as though it occurred within the United States.
But the provision does not apply to spacecraft registered by another country. A company can therefore register its satellite elsewhere, meaning US patent law no longer reaches what happens in orbit. Lawyers call this the flag-of-convenience problem, after the shipping practice it resembles.
Australia has no equivalent provision. Under the Patents Act 1990, Australian patent law applies to its land, territorial waters, seabed and airspace. Outer space is not mentioned.
“The problem for Australian aerospace companies is that an invention made up there isn’t an invention made in Australia, and a method used up there isn’t a method used in Australia, so a patent registered in Australia has no force in orbit,” Schieber says.
Launch site and state of registry are therefore legal decisions with consequences for IP, not merely logistical choices. An Australian innovator’s filing strategy may need to reflect the jurisdictions whose laws actually reach orbit.
Solving the problem
In practice, these issues are largely addressed through a combination of national patent laws and carefully drafted contracts.
The best-known example is the 1998 International Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA). For IP purposes, an activity occurring in a section of the Space Station built and registered by a partner is deemed to have occurred in that state. An invention made in Japan’s Kibo laboratory, for example, is treated as made in Japan.
“The IGA has become the template for other multi-agency projects,” Schieber says. “But in today’s arena, it has its limitations.”
The agreement was written for national agencies. Today, the parties are frequently private companies, often small ones, collaborating across borders. Their rights in orbit may be determined by a combination of their home country’s law, licence conditions attached to launch and registration, and the contractual terms they negotiate with each other.
What legal advice has to cover
Commercial contracts that hold up across jurisdictions are therefore critical. They must address the scope of the collaboration, the technology to be developed, ownership of the final product and data, which law governs and where disputes will be heard.
They must also anticipate the end of the relationship, because that is often when ownership questions surface.
Patent prosecution alone may not be enough. Companies operating in space will increasingly need coordinated advice covering patents, contracts, licensing and enforcement to protect innovations that are developed or used beyond the reach of Australian law.
Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based writer who focuses on law, legal affairs, and the business of law. Follow him on LegalWriter.net or email him at julius@legalwriter.net.