People Make Glasgow, and Glasgow makes satellites

Yes, Glasgow makes satellites. A recent report from the Digital Economy team over at Glasgow City Council, however, details a far more widespread and in-depth involvement of Glasgow in the wider UK and global space sectors.

Indeed, one of the main focuses of this report is the £208 million combined enterprise value of Glasgow's venture capitalist-funded start-ups in the space sector. A valuation to be proud of, and one arrived at by doing far more than simply making satellites (I'm not sure that anyone has ever simply made a satellite, mind you).

Yes, this report reveals that Glaswegian companies are deeply involved at the upstream, midstream and downstream stages of the space sector value chain. As well as producing an impressive number of satellites, of particular note is Glasgow's involvement in the operation of satellites themselves. Not stopping there, the city's start-ups are also involved in the receipt of data having been collected by these satellites, and the processing of this data so as to produce insights actionable in a number of varied fields.

As a patent attorney, I'd be remiss to mention the report's focus on the leaps and bounds which satellite technology has taken in years previous. Indeed, Glasgow's particular focus on CubeSat and PocketQube production has catalysed the completion of faster and far less expensive satellite missions, greatly increasing access to space and enabling those who may previously have been priced out to partake.

Not only a patent attorney, but a patent attorney based in Glasgow, this spotlighting of technological innovation in the city's space sector and the tangible benefits which it has brought about is welcome news, and leads to excitement at the thought of what start-ups in the city might achieve in years to come. Of course, the Glaswegian space sector does not exist in a vacuum (pun-intended), which means that excitement builds also for technological innovations in the wider UK and global space sectors.

With offices in a wide variety of locations across the globe, and an equally wide variety of expertise, we at Marks & Clerk remain keen to facilitate this continued growth of the space sector by way of securing robust intellectual property protection for innovators of space-related technologies. Indeed, for our dedicated Space Team, this is a primary focus.

In reading this report by Glasgow City Council, I was also pleased to learn that innovations in space-related technology throughout Glasgow have helped not only to increase access to space, but are also fixed to increase the access that communities across Scotland have to one another. That is, low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite broadband looks poised to connect remote communities throughout the country's islands and rural areas to one another. In that People Make Glasgow, it seems only fitting that the people of Scotland at large should also benefit from the successes of the city's space sector.

Finally, Andrew Strain, Chief Technical Officer, AAC Clyde Space said: “I did a map recently and there was a moment where if you looked up, something we built in Glasgow could be seen from every point on earth.”

www.digit.fyi/...