The New Space Race – SpaceX Takes on Blue Origin

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Blue Origin have been competing in the commercial rocket industry for over a decade, with each focusing on developing reuseable Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicles. As Elon Musk of Tesla Automotive fame and Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, continue to battle it out for government contracts, the world of patent inter partes review has become the new arena. In March of this year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Blue Origin a patent on the sea landing of space launch vehicles. The innovation in question was the ability to have the booster stage separate, reignite, and perform a powered landing on a sea-going platform. The problem? SpaceX argues there is nothing new in this patent, especially given a particular paper written by three Japanese scientists published in 1998.

It is now up to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to make the decision as to patentability, and the consequences are significant. SpaceX is clearly winning the commercial space race, having been awarded a $2.6 billion multilaunch Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract from NASA in September. Although the current launch systems use the non-VTVL Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX has already demonstrated its Grasshopper VTVL system and acknowledged the end goal is to have fully-reuseable boosters for its launches. A patent on VTVL vehicle landings in the ocean could be a significant obstacle for SpaceX—especially if the patent is held by Blue Origin.

Sources: http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/42007spacex-bringing-the-right-stuff-to-patent-slog-with-blue-origin-expert-says https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR201401376/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8678321/ http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.1998-4120

For more information on this topic, please visit our Patent Litigation service page.

Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX.  The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights.  The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution.  Additional information about the IP law firm and its IP law attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.

Klemchuk LLP hosts Culture Counts, a blog devoted to the discussion of law firm culture and corporate core values with frequent topics about positive work environment, conscious capitalism, entrepreneurial management, positive workplace culture, workplace productivity, and corporate core values.