ESA seeks companies to commercialise inventions

ESA develops a wide range of innovative technologies and applications to support Europe’s space efforts. When ESA staff are involved in the design of an innovation or invention, the Agency is free to apply for a patent. As one of the few agencies working in all sectors of space, ESA’s portfolio covers a diverse set of topics such as satellite attitude control mechanisms, communications equipment, optical communications and others. But the impact of these patents doesn’t have to stay indoors. 

A success story

Back in 2021, ESA’s Technology Transfer and Patent Office launched a special campaign in OSIP, the Open Space Innovation Platform, called “New Ideas for the Commercial Use of ESA’s Inventions”. The aim was to fund industry-led proposals based on ESA patents, with the intention of enabling their future commercialisation as part of a product or service. This way, industry could also benefit from the inventions made by ESA staff. The campaign was very successful: the team received 13 ideas and funded eight projects.

“The main objective of this funding call is to establish collaboration with companies, making sure that ESA’s ideas are never left in a drawer,” says Mercedes Sánchez Álvarez, Technology Transfer Engineer at ESA.

Based on these positive results, ESA’s Technology Transfer team, together with the Discovery & Preparation team, decided to launch a permanent open call for the commercial and technical maturation of ESA’s inventions.

If companies or startups have an idea for the technical and commercial maturation of ESA inventions, they can now share this idea through OSIP. ESA is accepting applications on a rolling basis and is available to fund the maturation of these ideas with a budget of up to 175k €. An updated list of patents that companies and startups can work on can be found in the open call under “Commercial and technical maturation of ESA’s inventions”.

So far, through this open call, ESA’s Technology Transfer and Patent Office has published two batches of patents and received ten ideas, four of which have been funded and another four are under evaluation.

One of the currently running activities comes from Sener, a Spanish space technology company. They received funding after proposing an idea to work on an ESA patent on the syntonisation of signals between satellites.

ESA’s original invention – ESA/PAT/789 – consisted of a method to generate extremely similar frequencies (syntonization) aboard two satellites in relative motion with respect to each other. This has applications in radio astronomy, remote sensing and the generation of navigation signals. Sener’s idea builds on this method and looks at ways of achieving not only syntonisation, but also synchronisation of local oscillators on different satellites. This coordination between satellites enables them to work together and has many advantages. For example, it can improve timing positioning by tuning and phasing navigation signals from multiple satellites.

Closer to commercialisation goals

All these possibilities could lead to more commercialisation opportunities and, consequently, new customers and increased revenues for the companies working on ESA patents.

“This is just a small step, a small push, to get patents closer to the commercialisation phase,” says Mercedes. “As a result of some of the projects we fund, we see industry really using these ideas and starting to commercialise them, and then maybe getting new customers.”

The fact that this campaign is now a continuous open call allows companies and startups to work on ideas and apply for funding on an ongoing basis. In addition to using ESA’s ideas, companies using the patents will also be able to leverage on ESA’s credibility to increase the reach of how they plan to implement their new ideas.

Applicants should clearly identify the field of application for the selected invention and the commercial opportunity to implement it as part of a product or service. ESA makes its intellectual property available on a freely licensed basis to European space companies within the Agency’s 23 Member States. For use by companies outside ESA Member States, or for non-space applications, a different licensing model is in place, allowing ESA to charge royalties.

“Our aim is to promote patents through the continuous channel in batches of six for a limited period of time. This allows us to target the promotion of these specific patents during this period,” Mercedes explains. “However, we are always open to any idea from industry that has a commercial opportunity in mind to mature any of the other patents in the portfolio.”