Layers of ownership
One parcel, many deeds, from the centre of the Earth to the stars.
A parcel’s rights are a many-sided cone: its outline runs down to a point at the centre of the world and widens without end into space. Every layer of that cone, and every right split off inside it, has its own Universal Positioning Number.
The layers
Highest first. Heights are nominal for the kind of right; each place’s real limits come from its overlays and deeds. Tap a layer for its rights and who limits them.
Who limits each layer
Owning a right is half of it. Every layer is also governed, often by several governments at once. Examples are for northeast Montana and the US on Earth.
Surface owners and mineral owners
Off the Earth
A robot that lands, keeps working and logs its presence builds a claim stage by stage: filed, maintained, approved, recognized. Issuing deeds from these records is the work of telepossess.com.
How the numbers hang together
- The place gets a permanent UPN: a parcel, a plat section on the Moon, a landing site.
- Each layer of its cone gets a UPN minted from the place’s UPN and the layer.
- Each right split off in a layer gets its own UPN: oil and gas below 5,000 ft, a 1/8 royalty, the soil carbon, a drone corridor.
- Leases, liens and claims on a right get UPNs that point at it, with owners, shares and dates in the record.