BENGALURU: Startups and investors in the Indian space sector have asked for a reworking of the intellectual property clause in the Space Activities Bill and for flexibility in liability insurance requirements, as India enters pre-legislative discussions on the Bill.According to the draft bill issued in 2017, the ownership of intellectual property created, generated or created in outer space is deemed to be vested with the central government.“The fact that the invention would be directly transferred to the government, instead of the government having a compulsory licence on it, is very strange,” said Dr Laurence Loomes, an intellectual property expert, at a Berkeley Law Society conference held on the future of private space exploration. “This is something that needs to be addressed because, otherwise, we are ripping off the inventor of the fruits of his labour.”Kris Nair, founder of Kawa Space, a startup working towards sending small satellites into space, said the IP clause was a significant worry. “The whole point of creating a startup is to bet on intellectual property,” Nair said. Last week, Jitendra Singh, a Union Minister of State (Independent charge) who also handles the Department of Space portfolio, told the Lok Sabha that the Bill was moving to pre-legislative discussion.The draft bill has been opened up for public consultations.The responses so far have been on clarifications and suggestions regarding certain provisions such as the scope of space activities, regulatory mechanism, licensing and authorisation procedures, sharing of liability burden with a limit on damage costs, penal provisions and powers of the central government..Indian startups have also asked that the government permit differentiation between them and larger space organizations. “There has to be a differentiation in the Bill, with different clauses for startups and other larger companies, and the government should help with liabilities, as some other countries have,” said Ankit Bhateja, founder of space startup Xovian.France limits the claim for compensation from the French government to 60 million euros and the private space operator is liable to pay for liabilities over and above that.