Study On Mode Of Legal Protection Of Computer Software

Protection of computer software is one of the topics over which experts in intellectual property right in various countries dispute over the last 20 years. Currently, copyright law has already been recognized as the main mode of legal protection of computer software in the world. But with the fast development of information industry and software gaining more importance, the deficiency of copyright law mode is increasingly revealed. So the problem concerning which mode will be selected to protect software needs an early solution. Chapter one: The concept of the computer software and legal characteristic. As a result of new technology revolution, people are often confused when applying existing laws to protect software, for computer software carries legal characters different from that of others. The thesis first introduces the concept and characteristic of the software. As unanimous understanding of software has not been established, I sum up on the definition of software from different perspective, taking its legal characteristics into consideration. Chapter two: Copyright law protection of computer software. The double attribute of software has caused a dispute over the protecting mode. Though the debate over the selection of protection mode has not come to an end, the legal practices go first. As the largest software producing and selling country in the world, United States enjoys absolute advantage in the world software industry. U.S. is one of the earliest countries legislating on the computer protection under copyright law, and problems in this subject have appear most in America in both theory and practice, which drove the exploration to go deep. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the judicial and legislative activities of the United States. Then I analyze the reason in selecting copyright law mode and advantage and disadvantage of the copyright law mode to prove copyright law mode's deficiency. Chapter three: Patent law protection of computer software. As a kind of new intelligence achievement, software is considered for protection under patent law in many countries when software is under initial legal protection. Yet when computer software is considered as a thinking step or algorithm, it will not qualify as a patent object under patent law of many countries. So the pure software is denied as patent. With the development of software industry, the application of the computer software is increasingly extensive, and has brought new technological effects when functioning with machinery equipment. Therefore, in recent years many countries' legislative and judicial practice tends to apply the patent law to protect software even more often. This chapter introduces software patent protection in developed countries and regions, such as the United States, Japan and the EU, where I dissertated the eligibility of software and analyzed the advantage and disadvantage of patent law protection. Chapter four: Protection of computer software through special legislation. In 1960s, people proposed protecting software through special legislation according to the characteristics of software. Yet so far this method has not been accepted as the mainstream in the world. What people can do is no more than protecting software under existing legal system. However, there inevitably appear shortcomings when software protection is included in a legal system, and such inclusion may even undermine the existing legal system. I think the special legislation is the ideal mode and should be taken under the example of industrial copyright law. Chapter five: Legislative measure of computer software protection in China. Discussion over the mode of software protection is to serve the purposes to perfect the legislation over software protection in China and to promote the fast development of the software industry in China. This chapter has reviewed the legislative efforts on software protection in China, and proposes the foundational principles upon which the legislative body shall act. Finally when taking the prac...