Title: Legal protection of computer programs in international and comparative law

Authors: Hossein Sorayaii Azar

Addresses: Department of Law, Islamic Azad University of Iran, Maragheh Branch, P.O. Box 345, Maragheh, Iran

Abstract: The spectacular development of the computer industry and the ever increasing role of the computer in the daily life of the nations, have created an astonishing atmosphere of rivalry and competition between different computer producers in the world. During the last decades of the twentieth century the computer technology evolved with an astronomical speed and brought with itself the information age, which in turn caused more competition in the hardware/software industry production. The hardware and software technology have been the principal medium of IT, while the interaction between these two technology, hardware/software, have raised many legal questions at national and international level. Hardware as a tangible res mobilia could be easily protected but software technology was expensive to develop and cheap to copy. This article analyses how the judiciary in different jurisdictions has tried to litigate the computer programs copyright claims. Whilst at the international level the international authorities have tried to unify different legal norms in the area of international copyright law and international legal protection of computer programs.

Keywords: computer programs; chip; source code; patentable; copyrightable; copyright laws; software technology; literary works; Berne Convention; WIPO; patents; legal protection; international law; comparative law; software copyright.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTPL.2014.061636

International Journal of Technology Policy and Law, 2014 Vol.1 No.4, pp.350 - 362

Published online: 02 Jul 2014 *

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