Software Rights

Software Rights
Author: Gerardo Con Diaz
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0300249322

A new perspective on United States software development, seen through the patent battles that shaped our technological landscape This first comprehensive history of software patenting explores how patent law made software development the powerful industry that it is today. Historian Gerardo Con Díaz reveals how patent law has transformed the ways computing firms make, own, and profit from software. He shows that securing patent protection for computer programs has been a central concern among computer developers since the 1950s and traces how patents and copyrights became inseparable from software development in the Internet age. Software patents, he argues, facilitated the emergence of software as a product and a technology, enabled firms to challenge each other’s place in the computing industry, and expanded the range of creations for which American intellectual property law provides protection. Powerful market forces, aggressive litigation strategies, and new cultures of computing usage and development transformed software into one of the most controversial technologies ever to encounter the American patent system.

Software and Intellectual Property Protection

Software and Intellectual Property Protection
Author: Bernard A. Galler
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 230
Release: 1995-05-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

How has the legal system used its traditional body of copyright and patent law to protect rights in computer software? The last 15 years have changed the entire landscape with regard to the creation and protection of software as intellectual property. Written by a computer expert with extensive participation in some of the most important software trials of the period, this book invites you to think critically about significant software issues and learn about the legal pitfalls surrounding software development in the industry today. The book is organized around various legal issues raised by both plaintiffs and defendants in copyright litigation, and the problems of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in dealing with the rapid proliferation of applications for software-related patents. The author explains important terms and concepts in software litigation such as infringement, substantial similarity, reverse engineering, the merger defense, and look and feel. A succinct, readable survey for computer professionals, nonlegal academics, and lawyers who need a fast summary of the critical issues and cases in software and intellectual property matters.

Law for Computer Scientists and Other Folk

Law for Computer Scientists and Other Folk
Author: Mireille Hildebrandt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2020
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198860870

This book introduces law to computer scientists and other folk. Computer scientists develop, protect, and maintain computing systems in the broad sense of that term, whether hardware (a smartphone, a driverless car, a smart energy meter, a laptop, or a server), software (a program, an application programming interface or API, a module, code), or data (captured via cookies, sensors, APIs, or manual input). Computer scientists may be focused on security (e.g. cryptography), or on embedded systems (e.g. the Internet of Things), or on data science (e.g. machine learning). They may be closer to mathematicians or to electrical or electronic engineers, or they may work on the cusp of hardware and software, mathematical proofs and empirical testing. This book conveys the internal logic of legal practice, offering a hands-on introduction to the relevant domains of law, while firmly grounded in legal theory. It bridges the gap between two scientific practices, by presenting a coherent picture of the grammar and vocabulary of law and the rule of law, geared to those with no wish to become lawyers but nevertheless required to consider the salience of legal rights and obligations. Simultaneously, this book will help lawyers to review their own trade. It is a volume on law in an onlife world, presenting a grounded argument of what law does (speech act theory), how it emerged in the context of printed text (philosophy of technology), and how it confronts its new, data-driven environment. Book jacket.

Interfaces On Trial

Interfaces On Trial
Author: Jonathan Band
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2019-03-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 042972361X

This book presents the history of one of the key debates in the continuing effort to develop a legal framework for intellectual property rights in the burgeoning computer software industry. It is the first full account of the interoperability debate-the controversy over the protectability of interface specifications and the permissibility of

Patents in the Knowledge-Based Economy

Patents in the Knowledge-Based Economy
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2003-08-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0309167183

This volume assembles papers commissioned by the National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) to inform judgments about the significant institutional and policy changes in the patent system made over the past two decades. The chapters fall into three areas. The first four chapters consider the determinants and effects of changes in patent "quality." Quality refers to whether patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) meet the statutory standards of patentability, including novelty, nonobviousness, and utility. The fifth and sixth chapters consider the growth in patent litigation, which may itself be a function of changes in the quality of contested patents. The final three chapters explore controversies associated with the extension of patents into new domains of technology, including biomedicine, software, and business methods.

High-tech Society

High-tech Society
Author: Tom Forester
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 1987
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9780262560443

High Tech Society is the most definitive account available of the technology revolution that is transforming society and dramatically changing the way we live and work and maybe even think. It provides a balanced and sane overview of the opportunities as well as the dangers we face from new advances in information technology. In plain English, Forester demystifies "computerese," defining and explaining a host of acronyms or computer terms now in use.Tom Forester is Lecturer and Director of the Foundation Programme in the School of Computing and Information Technology, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He is the editor/author of five books on technology and society.

Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing

Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing
Author: Andrew M. St. Laurent
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2004-08-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0596005814

The book wraps up with a look at the legal effects--both positive and negative--of open source/free software licensing.

Copyright in the Digital Era

Copyright in the Digital Era
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 103
Release: 2013-05-30
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0309278953

Over the course of several decades, copyright protection has been expanded and extended through legislative changes occasioned by national and international developments. The content and technology industries affected by copyright and its exceptions, and in some cases balancing the two, have become increasingly important as sources of economic growth, relatively high-paying jobs, and exports. Since the expansion of digital technology in the mid-1990s, they have undergone a technological revolution that has disrupted long-established modes of creating, distributing, and using works ranging from literature and news to film and music to scientific publications and computer software. In the United States and internationally, these disruptive changes have given rise to a strident debate over copyright's proper scope and terms and means of its enforcement-a debate between those who believe the digital revolution is progressively undermining the copyright protection essential to encourage the funding, creation, and distribution of new works and those who believe that enhancements to copyright are inhibiting technological innovation and free expression. Copyright in the Digital Era: Building Evidence for Policy examines a range of questions regarding copyright policy by using a variety of methods, such as case studies, international and sectoral comparisons, and experiments and surveys. This report is especially critical in light of digital age developments that may, for example, change the incentive calculus for various actors in the copyright system, impact the costs of voluntary copyright transactions, pose new enforcement challenges, and change the optimal balance between copyright protection and exceptions.

Legal Protection for Computer-Implemented Inventions

Legal Protection for Computer-Implemented Inventions
Author: Sabine Kruspig
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2016-04-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 904115244X

As a result of the incorporation of computer software into countless commercial and industrial products, the patentability of software has become a vital issue in intellectual property law. This indispensable book provides an overview on the current status of computer-implemented inventions in patent law across Europe and major jurisdictions worldwide. A hugely practical field research tool with guidance based on case law, it examines the major hurdles in each particular country and describes the best practice to be adopted. Clearly showing how enforceable software patent applications can be competitively drafted and how a patent portfolio for computer-implemented inventions can be established in several countries without spending money unnecessarily on problematic examination proceedings, this book covers such issues and topics as the following: • claim categories for patent applications; • sufficient level of abstraction/breadth of the claimed invention; • fundamental terms of computing and terminological traps; • probability for patents dependent on software application areas; and • patents in core areas of computing. With separate chapters for the key countries, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, China, Korea, Japan, India, and the European Patent Office the legal situation for computer-implemented inventions in each country or region, this book includes guidance on prosecution under national law, analyses of relevant court decisions, practice checklists, and an outlook on future developments.. The authors describe claim formulation based on actual cases and on principles of computer science in order to show what might be or might not be patentable in each jurisdiction. With this incomparable resource, patent attorneys and patent professionals in companies will get a basis for making decisions about the most appropriate jurisdictions in which to file patent applications. This book will also be of great value to computer professionals who are affected by the protection of software or who are actively involved in the protection of software by patent law.