Who Owns Ukrainian Defense Technology? A Buyer’s Guide to Chain of Title

Foreign companies are increasingly licensing, co-developing, acquiring and investing in Ukrainian defense technology. Before any of these deals, the buyer needs a clear answer to one question: does the Ukrainian company actually own the rights it is selling? In Ukraine’s defense sector the answer depends less on who built the product and more on who paid for it and what status the developer had at the time.

The question also matters for EU funding. EU defense programs now open to Ukrainian companies, such as SAFE and the Ukraine Support Instrument under EDIP, ask, among other things, who controls the company and who holds design authority over the product. Whatever the EU rules say, the starting point is always Ukrainian law: who owns the technology here, and what a Ukrainian company may lawfully do with it. This article covers only that Ukrainian side. For a wider view of our work in this area, see technology transfer and R&D investment in Ukraine.

One product often combines several of these. The map should therefore be applied to each component separately: hardware design, software, manufacturing process.

Since December 12, 2025, Law of Ukraine No. 4585-IX of August 21, 2025 gives the State the economic rights to inventions, designs and works, including software, created by servicemen in connection with their military service. The author keeps moral rights and a right to fair remuneration.

“In connection with service” is defined broadly. For inventions it covers not only work within official duties but also anything created “using official information, experience gained during military service, weapons, military and special equipment or other military property” (Article 9¹ of the Law on Inventions and Utility Models). Read literally, this could reach a large share of products born from frontline experience, including those that became the basis of a startup after the founder was demobilized. How widely the rule will be applied in practice is not yet known.

For inventions there is a safeguard. The serviceman reports the invention, and the State body has four months to decide whether to file a patent application. If it does not act, the right to file passes to the author, and the State keeps a preferential right to a license. The notice and the body’s decision, or its silence, are therefore key evidence of the author’s rights.

For software there is no such procedure. Under Article 14¹ of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, the economic rights to a work created by a serviceman in connection with service pass to the State at the moment of creation, unless the law provides otherwise. Since software is often the main value of a defense product, this is the first thing a buyer should check.

The Law has no retroactive effect. Objects created before December 12, 2025 are governed by the earlier, much less clear rules.

Under Article 36(2) of the Law on Defense Procurement, intellectual property created with State money as a result of defense procurement belongs to the State, represented by the State customer. Two conditions matter: the object must be created with State money, and it must be a result of the procurement. A product the company developed with its own money and later sold to the State under a supply contract is not caught. The answer is in the contract itself: its subject, the technical specification, the intellectual property clauses and what exactly was paid for.

Outside defense procurement, the general rule is the opposite. Under Article 11 of the Law on Technology Transfer, rights to technology created in budget-funded R&D belong to the developer, unless the technology is classified as a State secret. Where funding was mixed, the R&D contract decides; in practice this split is often never documented.

Brave1 grants do not transfer equity or intellectual property to the State. However, the standard grant agreement (Annex 6 to the Brave1 grant program rules, clause 2.1) contains two obligations a buyer should know about. Every six months for two years after final reporting, the developer must inform the Innovation Development Fund about the product’s progress toward a finished product and serial production. And for two years after the agreement ends, the developer must notify the Fund at least 30 calendar days before signing a foreign trade contract to transfer rights or technology created with grant money. This is a notice, not an approval, but a missed notice is a breach of the grant agreement. A license or a contribution of technology to a joint venture should be timed with this in mind.

Where the State owns the rights, there are two main routes, and the difference between them decides whether a foreign partner can use the technology at all. Both are covered in more detail on our page on defense technology and military procurement in Ukraine.

The first route is a free right of use under Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1310 of October 13, 2025. It is available only to Ukrainian State contractors, critical enterprises and companies in the procurement register, and only on the territory of Ukraine. It is not a route for foreign use. The only international element is that the Ministry of Defense may grant a right of use, including a right to sublicense, to defense ministries of NATO countries (paragraph 17 of the Procedure). This is a government-to-government route, not a private one.

The second route is a license under Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 834 of June 17, 2026, in force since July 2, 2026:

• Foreign companies can apply. Any legal or natural person may become a licensee, with exclusions for links to the aggressor State, sanctions, corruption offenses and similar grounds.
• Exclusive and sole licenses are granted only through a competition. The selection panel has five members, three of them independent experts.
• Payment: royalties, a lump sum or both; at least 25% of the income goes to the authors.
• Conditions to price in. The license may require production in Ukraine. The State body gets the right to use modifications. Failure to put the technology into use on time allows the State to terminate. A license to a foreign person must comply with export control law.

A useful tool: anyone may ask the State body, as a public information request, which intellectual property it holds and on what terms it licenses it (paragraph 25 of Resolution No. 834). This is one of the few formal ways to check whether the State claims a particular technology.

A separate, narrower experiment under Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 310 of March 12, 2026 gives companies free, non-exclusive access to Ministry of Defense software and data to train and test AI models. The Resolution does not say who owns the resulting model, and Ukrainian copyright law gives only partial answers: model weights generated without direct human involvement may fall under a special (sui generis) right lasting 25 years, which belongs to the owner or lawful user of the program that generated them (Article 33 of the Law on Copyright). The buyer should therefore look for a clear allocation of rights to the model, its weights and any modified Ministry software in the access agreement itself.

A foreign buyer cannot obtain the technology without the Ukrainian side clearing export control. The Ukrainian company needs registration with the State Export Control Service and a permit for each transfer. As a rule, exporting military goods also requires an authorization from the Cabinet of Ministers. This is not a permit for a specific deal but a company status: the application goes through the State Export Control Service and is reviewed by the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Security Service and the intelligence agencies, then by an interagency commission, and only then does the Cabinet of Ministers issue its resolution. Once granted, the authorization is valid for up to five years and renews automatically (paragraphs 6–11 and 14 of the Regulation approved by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 838 of June 8, 1998).

Since July 8, 2026, there is an exception: a manufacturer, or a company that owns the rights to the technology, does not need this authorization if it is a State defense contractor or is listed in the procurement register (paragraph 4 of the Regulation, as amended by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 875 of July 1, 2026, which applies for the period of martial law and six months after it ends).

The practical consequence is simple. If the Ukrainian company owns the technology itself, the export route is much shorter. If the State owns it, the company needs a license from the State with the right to transfer abroad, and then very likely the Cabinet authorization as well. Whether a licensee under Resolution No. 834 counts as a company that “owns the rights” is not clear; the cautious view is that it does not. Resolution No. 875 also tells the buyer what deal model to expect: the importing state guarantees use of the technology without alienation of the economic rights (paragraph 11 of the Procedure approved by Resolution No. 875), so the realistic structure is a license, not an assignment. More on export routes: dual-use and export control in Ukraine.

An invention made in Ukraine may be patented abroad only after an application has been filed in Ukraine and three months have passed without notice that it is classified as a State secret (Article 37 of the Law on Inventions). The same applies to PCT applications. Ukraine is not a party to the European Patent Convention, so protection in Ukraine and in Europe has to be built in parallel.

If the parties develop technology jointly and say nothing in their contract, each co-owner of a Ukrainian patent may use the invention, but none may license it or transfer rights without the others’ consent (Article 28 of the Law on Inventions). For classified inventions, any transfer or license needs the approval of the State Expert on Secrets. Licensing of joint results should therefore be agreed before development starts.

Much defense technology exists as know-how, code and design documentation rather than registered rights. Its protection still rests on the general trade secret provisions of the Civil Code of Ukraine (Articles 505–508). A draft law on the protection of trade secrets, implementing Directive (EU) 2016/943, would take effect from January 1, 2027 if adopted. Until then, non-disclosure agreements and a proper internal confidentiality regime are the main tools.

The SAFE Regulation requires contractors and key subcontractors in a common procurement to be established and managed in the EU, an EEA EFTA state or Ukraine, and not to be controlled by any other third country or third-country entity (Article 16(3) of Regulation (EU) 2025/1106). The Regulation does allow an exception, based on investment screening or security guarantees, but only for a company established in the EU (Article 16(5)). It contains no such exception for a company established in Ukraine.

In plain terms: if an investor from outside the EU, the EEA EFTA states and Ukraine takes control of a Ukrainian defense company, that company drops out of SAFE procurement. A separate SAFE agreement between the EU and the investor’s country — such as the one with Canada approved by Council Decision (EU) 2026/1381 — may set different conditions, so its terms need to be checked case by case. Ukrainian law does not soften this either: Ukraine has no foreign direct investment screening law, and draft laws No. 14062 and No. 14062-1 have not been adopted. A foreign investor that wants the Ukrainian company to stay eligible should structure its participation so that it does not acquire control. EU rules are summarized here as of October 1, 2026, for orientation only — before a deal, check them and any program-specific conditions with EU counsel.

• Break the technology down into components and establish how each was funded.
• Check whether any authors or founders were serving in the military when the technology was created, and whether the State was notified and what it decided.
• Review State contracts and grant agreements: subject, specification, intellectual property clauses, built-in licenses, Brave1 notice obligations.
• Check that employment and contractor agreements transfer economic rights to the company in writing.
• Where needed, send the Ministry of Defense a request under paragraph 25 of Resolution No. 834.
• If an AI model was trained on Ministry of Defense software or data, review the access agreement under Resolution No. 310: who owns the model, its weights and the modifications, and whether the model may be used outside the experiment.
• If the State owns any part, agree on the license model and export rights before signing with the Ukrainian partner, and check whether a Cabinet export authorization will be needed.
• Before filing abroad, file in Ukraine and wait three months; agree on licensing of joint results in advance.
• Check who will control the Ukrainian company after the deal: control by an investor from outside the EU, the EEA EFTA states and Ukraine takes the company out of SAFE procurement.
• Allocate the remaining risks in the contract: warranties on title, indemnities, retention of part of the price, dispute resolution.

If you are structuring a deal around Ukrainian defense technology — a license, a joint venture, an investment or an export — send us a short description of the product and how its development was funded. We will tell you who owns the rights, which route is realistic and what to put on paper before signing. We reply within one business day.

Practices: Defense Tech & Military Procurement · Export Control · Technology Transfer & R&D

The author — Anna Tsirat, Doctor of Laws, partner at JVS Law. She has acted as an expert on Ukrainian law in proceedings before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and is writing the Ukrainian national monograph for the International Encyclopaedia for Civil Procedure (Wolters Kluwer).

Published on October 11, 2026. This article is not legal advice. Ukrainian law is stated as of October 1, 2026, per the versions then in force of Law No. 4585-IX, the laws on inventions, on copyright, on defense procurement, on technology transfer, and Resolutions No. 838, No. 834, No. 875, No. 1310 and No. 310. Wartime acts are temporary — verify the current state before a deal.