Author Topic: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors  (Read 91890 times)

Offline D_Dom

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #20 on: 02/16/2016 04:02 pm »
To quote RonM above
"A mining patent is the transfer of Federal land to a private concern."
 Once we know who has the authority to transfer property then I wonder if it is a permanent transfer , making it "assignable". I guess that keeping any mining operation secret these days would be difficult whether it is on Mars, the Moon or an asteroid.
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Offline D_Dom

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #21 on: 02/16/2016 04:13 pm »
"Proving up" a claim might be as simple as landing equipment that surveyed the area or require actual collection and assay. Providing a method of delivery to the authority of something more tangible than data. I am not sure if flipping bits is adequate to "own" or "lease" extraterrestrial mining claims. Certainly we have a thriving space industry based on profiting from the flow of information.

As the authority issuing a patent it has dual role, protect the substantial investment and monitor the impacts of resource extraction.
Space is not merely a matter of life or death, it is considerably more important than that!

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #22 on: 02/16/2016 05:41 pm »
To quote RonM above
"A mining patent is the transfer of Federal land to a private concern."
 Once we know who has the authority to transfer property then I wonder if it is a permanent transfer , making it "assignable". I guess that keeping any mining operation secret these days would be difficult whether it is on Mars, the Moon or an asteroid.

In this context, a mining patent is intellectual property only.

Note that location of the claim could be secret until mining operations begin.


Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #23 on: 02/16/2016 05:45 pm »
"Proving up" a claim might be as simple as landing equipment that surveyed the area or require actual collection and assay. Providing a method of delivery to the authority of something more tangible than data. I am not sure if flipping bits is adequate to "own" or "lease" extraterrestrial mining claims. Certainly we have a thriving space industry based on profiting from the flow of information.

As the authority issuing a patent it has dual role, protect the substantial investment and monitor the impacts of resource extraction.

You are suggesting that a mining patent must be supported by a lander. The problem with that approach is that a lander in itself protects the area around it from infringement under the 1967 OST, making the Mining Patent moot. What we need is a step prior to physical possession (from having hardware on the surface) that protects the discoverer until they or their assignee is ready to ship and land hardware.

The question is what should be required to grant the discoverer a mining patent?  Clearly, we don't someone to point a telescope at a NEO and claim that a one pixel element showing platinum is sufficient.

Moreover, from a space policy perspective, we want there to be hundreds of mining patents, we want the NEO belt to be filled with commercial spacecraft prospecting for valuable materials. So, we don't want some patent regime where one spacecraft could generate by itself hundreds of patents by transiting the NEO belt.

Any ideas?


Offline R7

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #24 on: 02/16/2016 07:16 pm »
What we need is a step prior to physical possession (from having hardware on the surface) that protects the discoverer until they or their assignee is ready to ship and land hardware.

The easiest OST compatable method is secrecy.
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Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #25 on: 02/16/2016 08:53 pm »
What we need is a step prior to physical possession (from having hardware on the surface) that protects the discoverer until they or their assignee is ready to ship and land hardware.

The easiest OST compatable method is secrecy.

Not so good for actual business. Secrecy is effectively a trade secret, whereas a mining patent is intellectual property. In the Real World, trade secrets are only defensible by maintaining secrecy, whereas a patent is defensible in court.

What "secrecy" results in is every employee of a prospecting company effectively controlling the company, since if they were to leave the company, they would take all the good spots with them, meaning that only thing stopping them from selling the information would be whatever contract they signed with their employer. So, they could go to Europe and sell the information, and let their employer sue them in a European court.

I am really hoping that people here will take real business issues into account when trying to come up with a mining patents regime that makes sense.



Offline D_Dom

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #26 on: 02/16/2016 11:04 pm »
Starting to understand logic. Now I wonder if a better word might be appropriate, given my low understanding of intellectual property law. If a copyright protects something written ( music, novel) and a patent protects something invented (software, mechanism) I seek a word for something discovered.

 Again, the issuing authority is who exactly?

A primary purpose of protecting this flavor of intellectual property is to defend my investment in prospecting/assaying a specific location until such time as I sell it off to a mining consortium or finance the actual mineral extraction myself?

This is before a permanent physical presence, as a prospector would "stake his claim" but not necessarily make improvements before filing with the local authorities.

Interesting discussion, thanks for bringing it to light.
Space is not merely a matter of life or death, it is considerably more important than that!

Offline R7

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #27 on: 02/17/2016 06:41 am »
Not so good for actual business. Secrecy is effectively a trade secret, whereas a mining patent is intellectual property. In the Real World, trade secrets are only defensible by maintaining secrecy, whereas a patent is defensible in court.

NDAs give you the legal leg to sue for damages if someone leaks information.

I don't see even promising remote sensor results sufficient for actual mining patent (or deed). AFAIK it is not that even here on Earth. In-situ prospecting is required to prove that the site is viable for mining. Landing a prospector on another celestial body gives you the de facto deed.
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Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #28 on: 02/17/2016 02:58 pm »
Starting to understand logic. Now I wonder if a better word might be appropriate, given my low understanding of intellectual property law. If a copyright protects something written ( music, novel) and a patent protects something invented (software, mechanism) I seek a word for something discovered.

 Again, the issuing authority is who exactly?



The issuing authority would be a US agency, which would have authority for economic sanctions for any infringement of the mining patent that impacts the US market. I would hope that other nations would likewise authorize mining patents and that an international network of mining patent agreements would extend protection.

I am not claiming, however, that a US mining patent would cover the globe in the sense that Albania couldn't violate the patent, only that the US market is big enough that violating the patent would reduce the value of any proceeds from mining.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #29 on: 02/17/2016 03:03 pm »

I don't see even promising remote sensor results sufficient for actual mining patent (or deed). AFAIK it is not that even here on Earth. In-situ prospecting is required to prove that the site is viable for mining. Landing a prospector on another celestial body gives you the de facto deed.


Right, in order to find a site, someone has to send a lander, and the lander provides the necessary presence to protect the site.

The problem with that approach is that it is chicken-and-egg. No one is going to send a lander to a site unless they already know there is something valuable there. The way to determine there is something valuable is to fly over the site and use sensors to find the minerals. Between that moment and sending a lander, whoever is operating the spacecraft will want some sort of protection that someone else doesn't go there. That's where the mining patents come in.

"In situ" prospecting is a non-starter, due to the extremely short range of robotic prospectors and low possibility that a lander/rover sent to some random spot would find valuable materials.  It's only useful if it is known prior to sending the robot that there is valuable ore there.



« Last Edit: 02/17/2016 03:03 pm by Danderman »

Offline D_Dom

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #30 on: 02/17/2016 03:23 pm »
I am guessing the ability to remotely assess possible landing sites in detail sufficient to send equipment suitable  for mining the site exists. Meaning prospecting spacecraft do not land on the surface.

A different approach might be a physical visit by prospecting equipment, capable of making several such stops over its expected lifetime. Would leaving behind evidence of exploratory excavations provide a claim within the terms of OST?

 I imagine not every site visited would warrant future resource extraction so that some form of registering the most interesting locations with US oversight/regulatory authority is appropriate. Assuming of course the exploring entity is operating under US jurisdiction in the first place.
« Last Edit: 02/17/2016 03:26 pm by D_Dom »
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Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #31 on: 02/17/2016 08:27 pm »

A different approach might be a physical visit by prospecting equipment, capable of making several such stops over its expected lifetime. Would leaving behind evidence of exploratory excavations provide a claim within the terms of OST?



Luna 24 mined the Moon and the proceeds were sold commercially.

If someone tried to mine something in proximity to Luna 24 today, I am sure that the Russian Federation would remind them that the area around Luna 24 is off-limits.

Again, all of this is moot regarding Mining Patents, since having hardware on the ground (so to speak) provides rights under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty over and above what Mining Patents can provide. The problem is that no one is going to land a spacecraft to find valuable ores, they would survey from space, looking for outcroppings.  Having to actually mine to generate the right to mine is a dead end proposition.

The question is what kind of survey would be worthy of generating intellectual property rights?

« Last Edit: 02/17/2016 08:28 pm by Danderman »

Offline D_Dom

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #32 on: 02/17/2016 09:58 pm »
So the physical presence of the descent stage of the LUNA series provides the rights. What if a prospecting lander left no parts behind, merely traces of the excavation used to determine resource availability? Would that be compelling evidence in accordance with OST?
I accept your assertion that " no one is going to land a spacecraft to find valuable ores, they would survey from space," just wondering what could provide evidence admissible in a court of law of "rights" to a specific location unless and until you have actually touched the surface.
Space is not merely a matter of life or death, it is considerably more important than that!

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #33 on: 02/17/2016 10:44 pm »
So the physical presence of the descent stage of the LUNA series provides the rights. What if a prospecting lander left no parts behind, merely traces of the excavation used to determine resource availability? Would that be compelling evidence in accordance with OST?
I accept your assertion that " no one is going to land a spacecraft to find valuable ores, they would survey from space," just wondering what could provide evidence admissible in a court of law of "rights" to a specific location unless and until you have actually touched the surface.

"Evidence of having been there" is not sufficient for anything under the 1967 law. You need to be there right now, and as long as you are there, no one can touch your stuff.

As for admissibility in a court of law, the determining factor for the US would be whether you have been granted a mining patent. Under a mining patents regime, someone else could send their rover and drive all over your claim, since you don't have title or a physical presence. What they can't do is extraction at your claimed site.


Offline R7

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #34 on: 02/18/2016 10:02 am »
The problem is that no one is going to land a spacecraft to find valuable ores, they would survey from space, looking for outcroppings.  Having to actually mine to generate the right to mine is a dead end proposition.

Someone is going to land spacecrafts to verify that there are mineable resources. I doubt anyone would fund a full scale mining equipment flotilla into outer space unless a prospector-lander has visited the target, drilled here, scooped there and analyzed the samples.
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Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #35 on: 02/18/2016 02:31 pm »
The problem is that no one is going to land a spacecraft to find valuable ores, they would survey from space, looking for outcroppings.  Having to actually mine to generate the right to mine is a dead end proposition.

Someone is going to land spacecrafts to verify that there are mineable resources. I doubt anyone would fund a full scale mining equipment flotilla into outer space unless a prospector-lander has visited the target, drilled here, scooped there and analyzed the samples.

That may be part of the sequence, but if someone is going to spend the $$ to send a robot to verify there are resources on a NEO, they are going to want to have some data first indicating that there are resources worth verifying. That is where the prospectors come in. The prospector would survey a NEO to locate the resources, and the US government would then grant them a mining patent on the basis of any discovery.

The question is what does the prospector have to disclose in order to be awarded a mining patent? Let's say that a NEO has a diameter of 500 meters, and a prospector finds a platinum ore outcropping that is 30 meters in diameter, how is that discovery quantified and proven via survey?

Does the prospector get a patent that covers the entire NEO or just some portion of it?

Offline RonM

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #36 on: 02/18/2016 02:54 pm »
The question is what does the prospector have to disclose in order to be awarded a mining patent? Let's say that a NEO has a diameter of 500 meters, and a prospector finds a platinum ore outcropping that is 30 meters in diameter, how is that discovery quantified and proven via survey?

Does the prospector get a patent that covers the entire NEO or just some portion of it?

A 500 meter asteroid only has a surface area of 78.5 hectares or 194 acres. That's not a lot compared to mines on Earth, so they should get rights over the whole NEO.

Offline IRobot

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #37 on: 02/18/2016 05:08 pm »
Mining patents are not accepted in several countries, so a US patent won't protect the prospector completely.

Offline RonM

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #38 on: 02/18/2016 05:39 pm »
Mining patents are not accepted in several countries, so a US patent won't protect the prospector completely.

That's right. I've already mentioned that since the US signed the OST, an international organization would need to handle these issues. Nothing wrong with the US leading the way, but going it alone isn't going to work.

I guess we could just forget about all this international legal stuff and start working on weapons for space combat. ::)

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mining Patents for Outer Space
« Reply #39 on: 02/18/2016 09:17 pm »
Mining patents are not accepted in several countries, so a US patent won't protect the prospector completely.

Been over this before. A US mining patent protects the claimant by denying any claimjumpers the right to sell the products in the US market, same as a regular patent.

If your arguments are that patents are worthless, please start a new topic about this.


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