{"id":56869,"date":"2026-06-10T15:40:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T13:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/maiwald-blog\/file-late-pay-licence\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:56:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T13:56:34","slug":"file-late-pay-licence","status":"publish","type":"maiwald-blog","link":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/cn\/maiwald-blog\/file-late-pay-licence\/","title":{"rendered":"File Late, Pay Licence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

GPS spoofing, dual-use technology and the intellectual property question<\/em> European developers must now ask<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cargo ships appearing at airports on tracking displays. Tankers leaping hundreds of kilometres in seconds. A container ship running aground in the Red Sea because its bridge display shows the wrong position. A passenger aircraft aborting its approach because GPS places the pilot in the wrong airspace. A scheduled service from Helsinki to Tartu cancelled for months because the airport has no GPS-independent approach procedures. GPS spoofing and jamming have crossed from tactical fringe phenomenon into operational routine \u2014 in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf. Civil shipping and aviation suffer not as intended targets but as collateral damage: they share the same infrastructure as the targeted armed forces. The technical remedies for GPS degradation \u2014 inertial navigation systems, anti-jam antennas, quantum-based sensors, multi-constellation receivers \u2014 constitute a growth market, dominated, however, by a handful of major American players and an expanding cohort of Chinese ones, all commanding deep and broad patent portfolios. For European developers, this presents a twofold problem. First: the greater the complexity and maturity the market demands of a product, the longer the development trajectory that must be covered without recourse to third-party licences. Second: dependence on foreign actors for security-critical core technology cuts directly against Europe\u2019s political and industrial ambition of greater strategic autonomy \u2014 nowhere more acutely than in advanced military technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Innovation on the Clock<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Navigation technologies \u2014 like most dual-use technologies in military application \u2014 follow a highly dynamic innovation cycle. Each new jamming technique is met with a technical countermeasure; each countermeasure with a means of circumvention; each circumvention with a new solution. The pace is relentless and shows no sign of slowing. For companies developing in this environment, the intellectual property consequences are immediate: anyone wishing to launch a market-ready advance without having protected the underlying base technologies will find themselves shackled to third-party licences. Conversely, if a licence free product is to be developed instead, the detour typically takes so long that the intended solution is obsolete by the time it reaches market \u2014 the market having long since moved on to demanding the next countermeasure. In this environment, intellectual property rights over one\u2019s own developments are not a bureaucratic end in themselves, but a prerequisite for operative freedom in the next cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

File or Licence \u2013 Last Man Pays the Bill<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The good news: it is not too late. The bad: the window is narrowing with every product generation, and those who fail to build an intellectual property foundation today will pay dearly for it tomorrow. Building such a foundation calls for a staged approach: the initial application is filed with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. The ensuing twelve-month priority period serves as a clear-eyed interval for assessment: if the subject matter proves commercially worth protecting, international extension follows via a PCT or European application to secure foreign markets. In a market whose customers range from the German Armed Forces to commercial shipping companies, broad geographical protection is not a luxury but the foundation of commercial viability. Striking the right balance between an expansive portfolio and a leaner one is, however, a question demanding careful strategic thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guard the Crown, Forfeit the Tree<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

An end product typically contains many technological solutions \u2014 some worth protecting, others less so. The temptation, driven by fiscal caution, to file only for the central core innovations and consign smaller intermediate solutions unprotected to the domain of trade secrets and NDAs is understandable but dangerous: the spectre of reverse engineering looms. Dual-use technologies in particular will inevitably fall into competitors\u2019 hands, at least in their civilian variants. Those competitors need not rebuild the entire innovation ladder from scratch \u2014 only design the final rungs themselves. The more intermediate steps left unprotected, the less ground competitors need to cover. Those who think too narrowly about their intellectual property portfolio are effectively gifting hard-won development work to the competition. Non-disclosure agreements can, on occasion, serve as a useful complement to patent protection \u2014 but never as a substitute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Products Expire, Brands Endure: Identity as a Strategic Asset<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Brands and other intellectual property rights demand no less consideration. In a market moving as fast as the dual-use sector, the lifespan of any individual product is short and its successor arrives sooner than in most other industries. All the more important, then, is a strong brand identity that endures across product generations, signalling continuity and reliability to the customer. Product names should therefore be secured and put to use early \u2014 both nationally and internationally \u2014 before imitators crowd the market and obscure the landscape. In the dual-use sector in particular, early preparation for a dual branding strategy may well prove worthwhile: one brand for the military product line, one for the civilian. Those developing a unified product family for both markets today may find themselves wanting to split it tomorrow \u2014 whether for regulatory reasons, owing to differing export requirements, or to address distinct customer groups with greater precision. Such a separation also enables the establishment of a civilian product whose reputation stands fully emancipated from its military counterpart\u2019s. The civilian customer might sleep more soundly at night, if their new navigation device bears no obvious reminder of the latest headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


We advise companies operating in navigation technology, dual-use and defence on the full spectrum of intellectual property matters \u2014 from developing an international filing strategy and portfolio planning across the military-civilian interface to enforcement in the event of infringement. Should a secrecy order ever be issued by the German government in an individual case and cut across a planned commercialisation strategy, we will advise you comprehensively on your options and guide you through the proceedings before the competent authorities. Get in touch.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-56869","maiwald-blog","type-maiwald-blog","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/maiwald-blog\/56869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/maiwald-blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/maiwald-blog"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/maiwald-blog\/56869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56876,"href":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/maiwald-blog\/56869\/revisions\/56876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiwald.eu\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}