Types of licences

Commercialization licence

By granting licences, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) provides business opportunities for firms wishing to use leading-edge CSA technologies for commercial purposes. A commercialization licence provides access, for a pre-determined period of time and under certain conditions, to intellectual property rights and to know-how available for transfer for the purposes of manufacturing, using and/or selling one or more products in a particular market.

Without necessarily being limited to either, a commercialization licence may be sole or non-exclusive.

Research and development (R&D) licence

The CSA can also grant licences for R&D purposes. The research objective may be a discovery possibly leading to a new product or process or simply the improvement of an existing product or process.

User licence

In other cases, the CSA can provide licences permitting access or granting the right to access and use information and data for a purpose other than commercialization or research. This type of licence is used mainly for software programs.

Licence for educational and training purposes

Upon request, the CSA may provide educational institutions with licences permitting the use of a technology for educational and training purposes.