On Patent Protection Of Computer Software

Computer software is one of the objects of intellectual property right. It has unique legal characteristics and technical characteristics. The legal protection of computer software involves several intellectual property laws, such as copyright law, patent law, trademark law, business secret law, and so on. Especially, its dual characteristics of "works" and "implement" make legal protection become more complicated. Therefore, it isn't adequate to protect only by copyright law. However, our country knows insufficiently about computer software patent, not only in theory but also in judicial practice. This situation requires our deeper research on this issue. In this dissertation the author studies and analyses legal theory about software patent, demonstrates the feasibility of software patent in patent terms and brings up the suggestion of our country's software patent on the basis of research of American Japanese and European software patent.This dissertation contains five chapters. The first chapter is general remark of theory about software. In this chapter, the author defines a set of conceptions about software and discusses its legal features. The second chapter is about the comparative research of several legal protection ways of software. In this chapter, the author points out the advantages of patent compared with other legal protection ways. The third chapter is about the rationality of software patent. In this chapter, the author demonstrates the "patentability" of software form the aspects of technical development and its legal characteristics on the basis of refutation to the traditional opinions on the software patent. The fourth chapter is of the comparative research of software patent of America, Japan and Europe. In this chapter, the author compares the legal rules and judicial practice of software patent in America, Japan and Europe, point out the quotable methods. The fifth chapter is about the suggestion of our country's software patent. The author prints out that we must go from our reality, must never copy other country's methods blindly and tail after the high protection level of developed countries blindly, "the appropriate one is the best one".