Decoding the Intellectual Property Rights regime in Outer Space

The method in which mankind has interacted with Outer Space has undergone massive transformation, a transformation which the law governing the Outer Space has failed to keep up with. One such area is that of the Intellectual Property Regime, which is worrisome considering the rise of private companies interacting with Outer Space and Multinational Space Projects. Such projects and private companies come with the risk of a massive investment that deserves the protection of law. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to bridge this gap between the legal regime governing Intellectual Property Rights and the legal regime governing the interaction between humanity and Outer Space. The scope of this paper lies in understanding the changes in the manner in which mankind interacts with Outer Space, analysing the current interaction between laws governing Outer Space and Intellectual Property Rights, highlighting the major issues that plague the harmonization of both these legal regimes and providing a basic direction for some solutions to these problems. The purpose of this paper is not to solve these issues considering it would be an injustice to discuss said problems in one paper. These problems represent massive challenges to the law which need to be delved into on an individual scale. The purpose of this paper is to provide a basic direction in which research can be done to arrive at solutions to harmonize both the legal regimes.