ITPEC FE Morning April 2018 Question 80
ITPEC FE Morning April 2018 — Question 80 of 80
Software protection under TRIPS — what copyright covers for software
Under the WTO TRIPS Agreement, computer programs are protected as literary works under the Berne Convention. This protection applies to the expression of the program — meaning the actual code — not to underlying ideas, algorithms, or programming languages.
- •Source programs (human-readable code) are protected
- •Object programs (compiled/machine code) are also protected — they are a different expression of the same work
Why not others:
- a) Algorithms and programming languages are ideas/methods — copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression in code
- b) All programs are protected equally — there is no exception for "basic programs" like operating systems; OS code is copyrighted just like application code
- d) This reverses the rule — programs created using algorithms ARE protected; it is the algorithm itself (the abstract idea) that is not
Key rule: Copyright protects expression (code), not ideas (algorithms/languages). Both source and object code qualify as protectable expression under TRIPS.
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