The Legal Protection Of Computer Software Model Study

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: This part describes the definition of "computer software", including the type of computer software, law character and developing process of computer software. The first part is the theoretical point of departure of this article.Chapter two: Firstly, copyright law protection of computer software. As the largest software protecting and selling country in the world, United States enjoys absolute advantage in the world software industry. U. S. is one of the earliest counties legislating on the computer protection under copyright law. Therefore, this part focuses on the judicial and legislative activities of the United States. ThenⅠanalyze the reason in selecting copyright law mode and advantage and disadvantage of the copyright law mode to prove copyright law mode's deficiency. Secondly, patent law protection of computer software. 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 software industry, the application of the computer software is increasingly extensive. This part introduces software patent protection in developed countries and regions, such as the United States, Japan and The EU. WhereⅠdissertated the eligibility of software and analyzed the advantage and disadvantage of patent law protection. Finally,Ⅰintroduce the advantage and disadvantage of brand law protection and business secret law protection.Chapter three: Legislative measure of computer software protection in China. Discussion over the mode of soil:ware 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 practice into account,Ⅰsuggest the legal protection mode——protecting software comprehensively, with copyright law protection as the foundation and with special legislation as the main body.