Space industry is a backbone element of the defense-industrial complex and high-tech civilian industries of the Russian economy, thus increasing its innovation activity is a complex and multidimensional problem. The basis of the solution is to create an effective intellectual property lifecycle management system, which eliminates the dependence on foreign technologies, as well as to develop own scientific and technical capabilities and innovation infrastructure. The most important part of this system is the process of patent research. In this paper, the links between patent research purposes with the stages of the high-tech product lifecycle are studied and a model of patent research processes for the space industry enterprise is developed, allowing to increase its effectiveness. The proposed model identifies three key parts: planning, information retrieval and information processing, lays out the functions of the patent department and technology developers in patent research, gives recommendations on the organization of their co-working.