Protecting industrial property rights

R.H Stern, Graham & James, Washington, DC

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 1993)

The author suggests that US patent and copyright law systems can be described in terms of models, which facilitates understanding of their operation and permits some amount of simulation. This may permit the circumstances that impose stresses on the systems and may strain them beyond their limits to be ascertained. The two models, those of patent and copyright law, on which the conventional approaches to intellectual property protection rely in the US are discussed. It is shown that these two models of legal protection have limitations, particularly in regard to late 20th century computer software technology. Systems based on these models are particularly unsuited to protecting noncode aspects of computer software or to protecting against nonverbatim, nonliteral copying of computer programs. Other legal models for protecting at least the nonliteral, noncode aspects of software, are considered.