On Legislative Improvement In Protection System Of Our Computer Software

The article is be divided into four parts to discuss legislative improvement in legal protection system of our computer software.In the first part, the author gives a brief account of computer software and its legal protection, like its definition, character and classification, current development of our software industry and the significance to protect computer software.The second part is the most important point. In a comparative and comprehensive way, the author does more detailed research about current methods to protect software, referring to theoretical foundation, basic principle, protective characteristic and the analysis of their pros and cons. She also raise her own thoughts and points on base of the above. What is first introduced is how to protect software copyright. Then she dose serious analysis of and elaborate on basic and theoretical problems about how to protect software copyright. Finally, she focuses on the two basic principle of copyright, that's "creativity" and "idea/expression dichotomy", and take their nature and role in copyright protection into considerations.Besides dominant copyright protection, 90s' thriving patent protection is a new protective method that is based on software practicality. Taking American and Japanese patent protection for example, the author introduces development course and current situation, different attitude that the two hold toward the patent protection concerning software invention used to commercial purpose and our current legislative rules about patent protection and its advantages and disadvantages. The method to protect business secret, standing special, likely reveals all the details to protect obligee's benefits, instead of focusing on protecting software. The author not only briefly analyse pros and cons of the method to protect business secret, but also draw to conclusion that China should apply comprehensive and protective method through comparing the three above methods.In the third part, while the author considers faced problems in the area of our legal protection of computer software, she discloses existing problems in the system of legal protection from aspects of social benefit, legislative conflict and the construction of legal system.Finally, although today this comprehensive and protective model is just passable, our country sill will be under control of big software-made countries like America, and the digital gap becomes larger and larger.In the last part, the author dare to come up with the hypothesis. Through comparing microsoft's operative system Windows and Linus, she points out the differences between commercial software and free software in terms of technological operation and business management. So according to our current situation, we should develop original and home-made software in the help of launching free software, meanwhile, we should increase the content of free software protection in terms of software protection.