Legal Analysis Of Computer Software's Patentability

The computer software is widely used in social life each , it is obviously known by everyone. But computer software renews quickly, and the cost is high, we should give the powerful protection to it. However, there are many types of protection, such as, the copyright protection, the patent protection, the business secret protection, the trademark protection, the contract protection, the special legal protection and so on. But the protection all over the word is not unified. Most countries are use copyright to protect the software, also include our China. But since the 1980s, America, the biggest country of the software making, has abandoned the copyright module, and provides patent law to protect the computer software, now this kind of protection is expanded. The US starts to authorize the software about commercial method patent. It results widely discussion in the world. Our country mainly uses the copyright law to protect the computer software, but we also authorize some inventions which contain software programming, but it is extremely limited. Generally speaking, our country will use copyright law to protect the computer software for long time. But we should research the developed country's agency about the software protection.This article divides into five chapters. The first chapter introduced the computer software's characteristic and the algorithm characteristic. The software is different from mathematical formula, so it can be patented.The second chapter, introduces the main protections over the word, and compares every type's superiority and insufficient. The conclusion of this chapter is the patent protection is best, it can provide more powerful protection for software.The third chapter, introduces the computer software's protection in our country. Our country mainly uses the copyright law to protect the computer software.The fourth chapter, introduces the software protection process about the developed countries. The developed countries include America, Japan, Europe Union and so on. The countries above all experienced from the copyright protection to the patent protection to protect their software. At present, the tendency about patent protection is expansion.The fifth chapter, analyzes the significance about authorize the software patent. And give some proposal to the related Functional departments.The main difference of this article to other related papers is, it analyzes the computer software's characteristic carefully, the best way to protect software is patent. It also gives some specifically proposal to the related Functional departments.