컴퓨터 프로그램의 법적 보호방법에 대한 태도의 변천 = A Study on the Legislative Protection for Computer Programs

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this article is to examine legislative provisions for the protection of computer software in the United States, Japan and European Union in exploring some means of legally protecting computer software in Korea. The necessity for such protections has surfaced with the introduction of programing languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN in the 1950s. The issue of copyright for computer software was not so serious in the 1950s but with the wide spread supply of software for general office tasks in the 1960s, the programers began to see the need for legal protection of their products.
The source code and object code which contains the expressed ideas are protected by the copyright law, even though the idea itself may not be protected by the same law. On the other hand, if the ideas which are expressed in the form of computer programs are maintained and managed in secret, they can be protected in accordance with the trade secret law. Also the program ideas can be protected by the patent law if they satisfy the requirements of the legislation.
Some program developers are seeking to obtain legal protection through patent law in 1980s. Section 101 of the US patent law grants patents to the inventors who produce a product which meets the requirements of industrial Utility, Originality and Non-obviousness. And so the program to link its ideas with physical objects in order to secure the patent satisfies the requirements of patent in US.
However, a fundamental question has to be raised with regard to the capacity of computer software to satisfy the requirements of the patent in korea. Clause 1 of the article 2 of the Korean patent act differs from the spirit of section 101 of the US patent law in that it adds the requirements regarding the utility of the natural law. This in fact strengthens the physical element of the software for Computer Software-related Inventions. Considered in this very light, the Korean Guidelines for Computer Software-related Inventions(1998) which has granted a patent for the “computer readable memory” raises a serious feasibility issue in the context of Korean patent law.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 서론
• Ⅱ. 영업비밀보호법에 의한 보호
• Ⅲ. 저작권법에 의한 보호
• 1. 미국
• 2. EU
• 3. 일본
• 4. 우리나라
• Ⅳ. 특허법에 의한 보호
• 1. 미국
• 2. EU
• 3. 일본
• 4. 우리나라
• Ⅴ. 결론