21st Jan 2021
The era of satellite based broadband has now launched in the UK, with Starlink, another project of the Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, being granted a license by Ofcom to begin a limited trial. And while Starlink may be the first, they certainly won’t be the last. A cluster of other companies have launched in this sector, each with the aim of using a constellation of (read “awful lot of”) networked satellites to provide global broadband coverage. Notable competitors include One Web, which is back to launching satellites after being rescued from bankruptcy last year by the UK government and Indian conglomerate Bharti Global, and Amazon’s Kupier Systems, to name but a few. The EU have also announced plans for their own system, following the Galileo global positioning system.
11th Sep 2020
The Supreme Court decision in Unwired Planet and others ([2020] UKSC 37) represents the culmination of a series of trials, begun in 2014, and involving several key players in the telecommunications industry
3rd Jan 2019
Patenting space technologies presents some complications that are not so often encountered in more terrestrial areas of technology.Patents for a system or a method that would be implemented in space can end up being of limited use when it comes to enforcement. The reason for this is that patents confer national rights.
30th Jun 2017
Jon West reviews the latest decison in Unwired Planet v Huawei and explains what a FRAND injunction actually is
31st May 2017
Nick Reeve summarises a UK decision providing guidance on the terms of potential licenses of standard essential patents (SEPs).
4th Oct 2013
The last decade or so has seen an increasing shift from government owned space ventures to a rapidly growing commercial space sector. The Ansari X Prize competition, won in 2004 by Scaled Composite’s SpaceShipOne, demonstrated that the prospect of significant financial return can encourage competition between commercial space companies, despite the enormous financial outlay required […]