Terms of Use


The Northern Ireland Mapping Agreement (“NIMA”) Intellectual Property (“IP”) you access in SpatialNI™ has been created by Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland® (“OSNI”) and is available to you as a participant of NIMA.

The IP You access here belongs to the Crown and is protected by © Crown Copyright and Database right. Any data exchanged between valid licensees remains subject to Crown copyright and Database Right, and all relevant Intellectual Property Rights.

The IP may also contain third party information (TPI). TPI remains the property of the third party and is supplied to Spatial NI under Licence.

1. What you can do with the NIMA IP

As a NIMA Participant you may:

As a NIMA Participant you must not:

Where you have any doubt, you (The NIMA Participant) must contact LPS’s IPR team BEFORE PROCEEDING for advice/guidance. This can be via email or by calling 028 9033 6690 (56690 internal).

2. Definition of Internal Business Use (IBU)

IBU is solely and explicitly to fulfil the mapping requirements of the NIMA Participant’s public tasks, for the internal administration and for the internal day-to-day activities involved in the operation of The NIMA Participant’s business to deliver their public tasks.

As a NIMA Participant you are specifically excluded from supplying the IP to any third party, other than another NIMA Participant, without the use (as appropriate) of either a Sub-Licence or DDSL ). The criteria for issuing either is set out in paragraph 3.

Licensed use of the IP by a NIMA Participant does not extend to use for any activity that uses the IP to compete with commercial service providers.

Any NIMA Participant that uses the IP to compete with a commercial service provider and has not entered into an appropriate agreement with LPS, shall remain wholly responsible for the acts committed and accepts any liability for this unauthorised use of the IP.

If You have any doubt on the appropriate use of the IP you (The NIMA Participant) must contact LPS’s IPR team for advice/guidance BEFORE PROCEEDING. This can be via email or by calling 028 9033 6690 (56690 internal).

3. Sub-Licencing NIMA IP and issuing Datasets derived from NIMA IP

Where you need the assistance of a 3rd Party to perform a task to build a part of / deliver an element of your public task, NIMA IP can be temporarily sub-licenced and shared with that 3rd party.

The 3rd party must return all of the NIMA IP and all data derived or based on it back to the NIMA Participant on completion of the task.

A DDSL may only be issued where both you (The NIMA Participant) and the 3rd Party (Derived Data Sharing Licensee) hold validly licensed copies of the same licensed IP covering the same geographical extent.

This will allow you to share a dataset you have based upon the NIMA IP with a 3rd Party under the terms of the respective licences.

A NIMA Sub-licence / DDSL form needs to be completed and signed by both parties and a copy forwarded to LPS IPR team BEFORE the IP can be shared.

Both forms are available from LPS IPR team and can be requested via email or by calling 028 9033 6690 (56690 internal).