Drones as intellectual property objects: what developers need to know. A column by Juscutum

Since late 2025, Ukraine’s officials have stepped up efforts around intellectual property in the defence sector. Without a clear IP strategy, even private manufacturers risk losing rights to products they financed themselves or developed jointly with the military.

For Defender Media, Olha Zaviazun, a lawyer in the business support practice at Juscutum, explains which cases transfer rights to an invention to the state, what exactly in a drone constitutes intellectual property, and how drone developers can properly register and protect their technologies.

At a time when Ukrainian technologies, battle-tested on the front lines, are becoming a cornerstone of national security, the protection of intellectual property (IP) is taking on strategic importance. This applies, among other things, to drones — from FPV kamikaze systems and interceptor drones to reconnaissance UAVs equipped with artificial intelligence, guidance systems, and other advanced features. Every innovation in this field can become both an investment asset and a target for adversarial replication.

While complex weapons systems have traditionally been developed by state-owned enterprises or large defence companies, the drone market has effectively been built from the ground up—shaped by engineers, startups, volunteer teams, and military units themselves.

Today, drones represent the most widespread and dynamic segment of Ukraine’s defence tech sector. The National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine has stated that potential production capacity could exceed 8 million FPV drones annually, while the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine reports plans to produce more than 7 million drones of various types in 2026. Drones account for up to 60% of Russian military losses, and nearly 95% of the UAVs used by Ukraine’s Defence Forces are domestically produced.

At the same time, according to the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, including its executive director Ihor Fedirko, drone production in Ukraine is expected to continue growing in 2026. However, further industry scaling will depend on funding availability, while state and military requirements for products are set to become stricter and more technologically complex.

New rules of the game: the state becomes a full-fledged IP actor in the military domain

On December 12, 2025, amendments to intellectual property legislation took effect, establishing a special legal status for IP rights related to objects created in the defence sector. Previously, the system relied on general rules governing work made in the course of employment. For the first time, however, it has been explicitly stated that certain results of intellectual activity in the military domain may belong to the state as the contracting authority.

In the case of drones, this looks as follows:

• If a service member or a team of military personnel develops an autonomous flight algorithm, an electronic warfare (EW) resistance system, or targeting software under official orders, the state (including the Ministry of Defence, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service, or the National Guard) may become the primary holder of the economic rights. The developer remains the author and may be entitled to remuneration.
• The state gains the authority to determine the procedures for transfer, commercialisation, and export control of the technology.

For private drone developers, this means that without a clear IP strategy, a company risks losing rights to a product it has funded or co-developed with the military.

When do rights transfer to the state?

• If a work is created in connection with the execution of a state contract or as part of official duties — based on an order or job description that includes intellectual, creative, scientific, technical, innovative, inventive, or rationalization activities (Article 43-1 of the Law of Ukraine “On Military Duty and Military Service” dated March 25, 1992, No. 2232-XII) — then specific IP rules apply.
• A service member who creates an intellectual property object must submit a written notification to the commander of the military unit, including a description of the object, the authors, and the assignment under which it was created. The state, represented by the relevant authorized bodies (the Security Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, or the National Guard of Ukraine), then accepts such an IP object (Article 16-1 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Internal Service Regulations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” dated March 24, 1999, No. 548-XIV).
• The service member may receive remuneration for creating the IP object in the form of author’s compensation.

When is it considered an individual’s creative activity without the state holding economic rights?

If intellectual property objects are created outside the execution of a state contract or official military duties, during military service, as a result of scientific, technical, or artistic creative activity, then the rights fully belong to the author, and the state does not claim such objects.

The key criterion, however, remains somewhat ambiguous: it is the ability to demonstrate the absence of any connection to official duties (whether defined by orders, job responsibilities, the nature of the position, a contract, or other agreements).

That is why, in practice, it is critically important to properly structure and formalize relationships between companies, developers, military units, and government authorities already at the early stages of development.

What exactly in a drone is considered an object of intellectual property?

One common misconception is that intellectual property in a drone is limited to a patent for an invention. In reality, a single unmanned aerial vehicle can contain multiple intellectual property objects. The Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovations notes that the following elements in a drone may be protected:

• The design of a drone or its components may be protected as an invention or utility model;
• The external appearance of a drone or its parts may be protected as an industrial design;
• Software and design documentation may be protected as copyright objects or as trade secrets;
• The configuration of an integrated circuit may be protected by a certificate for a layout design of a semiconductor product;
• The name and/or logo of the manufacturer or drone model may be protected as a trademark.

Thus, a single product can be simultaneously protected by patents, copyright, trademarks, and a trade secret regime.

In addition, the defence sector has a separate category — classified inventions and utility models — which allow technologies to be protected without public disclosure. Their registration follows a special procedure, and access to information is restricted in accordance with state secrecy legislation.

If an invention (or utility model) is created using information included in the Register of Information Constituting State Secrets of Ukraine, or if it may be classified as a state secret under the Law of Ukraine “On State Secrets,” the application is submitted to the Ukrainian National Office for Intellectual Property and Innovations through the applicant’s security-regime authority, or through the competent body of the local state administration at the applicant’s location (for legal entities) or place of residence (for individuals).

The application must include the applicant’s proposal to classify the invention (utility model) as a state secret, with reference to the relevant provisions of the Law of Ukraine “On State Secrets.”

At the same time, it is important to note that the use of a classified invention (or utility model) and the disposal of rights (including the ability to transfer rights or conclude a licensing agreement) by the patent holder must comply with the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On State Secrets” and be approved by the State Expert on Secrecy.

In cases where patenting is undesirable or not feasible, developers often rely on a trade secret regime. This requires establishing internal access-control rules: defining which information qualifies as a trade secret, implementing internal policies, agreeing on data-sharing procedures, maintaining access logs, and controlling the transfer of information outside the team.

How drone developers can formalise and protect rights to their technology

An important element of protection, in addition to formal registration, is having properly structured contracts and thorough documentation of how the technology is created.

In most cases, companies should have:

• agreements on the transfer of exclusive economic rights;
• contracts with individual entrepreneurs (FOP) or contractors;
• agreements between co-founders regarding IP rights;
• NDAs (non-disclosure agreements);
• agreements with military units;
• work-for-hire / commissioned development agreements;
• licensing agreements;
• trade secret policies.

It is also important to document the development process, including storing technical drawings, code repositories, test protocols, recording the authors of the developments, and preserving intermediate versions. This creates an evidentiary basis for authorship and ownership rights to the technology.

Legal protection of defence drones is not an option, but a necessity

Intellectual property in the field of unmanned systems today is no longer just a legal matter. It is about control over technologies, their protection, investment, production scaling and, ultimately, national security. In the defence sector, IP has become a strategic asset that underpins innovation and safeguards critical capabilities.

For drone and defence tech developers, this means that properly structuring intellectual property rights should be embedded into the technology’s development strategy from the very beginning. As innovation cycles accelerate and technologies are often created in collaboration with the military, failure to secure IP early can undermine both commercialisation and long-term control over the product.

Olha Zaviazun

Lawyer at the Business Support Practice at Juscutum

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