rediff.com: India takes patent war to space

India, which has been opposing patents on neem, turmeric and basmati rice, has now taken the patent war literally to space.

The Department of Space here has fought and successfully won a patent case against American company Leo One IP.LLC. The company had filed for an Indian patent on the concept of using equatorial and polar orbiting satellites as relays for a satellite-based communication system.

"Had the patent been granted, India could never use this method of satellite communication in future without paying huge royalties," N Sampath, executive director of Antrix Corporation, DoS' commercial department, told PTI.

The patent was simply for the "concept" of using satellites orbiting in different planes for communication which is nothing new, according to Sampath, who said "Antrix opposed this with substantial documentary evidence to counter the novelty claims by the US company".

While the US company has subsequently withdrawn its patent application, the problem is not over for Antrix, which is fighting two more patent in the area of space applications, Sampath said.

One patent that Antrix is opposing is again on a different system of satellite communication filed by the same US company, and the other one is for a system of communicating data from a satellite to several remote units filed by Donald L Schilling, another US company.

Sampath said his agency is opposing the novelty claims of these two patents and expressed confidence that the patents would be withdrawn.

According to Sampath, a number of international space agencies have been filing patent applications designating India on various applications related to space activities and "the number of such applications is on the rise". Most of these patent applications relate to the area of satellite communication, he said.

He said opposing space patents is an expensive and time consuming affair but is something the department cannot ignore since not doing so would result in heavy losses to space department later on.


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