ITPEC FE Morning October 2019 Question 80
ITPEC FE Morning October 2019 — Question 80 of 80
Software Copyright under TRIPS — what is protected as intellectual property in software.
TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) treats computer programs as literary works under the Berne Convention. Protection covers the expression (the actual code), not the underlying ideas (algorithms, methods, languages).
Both source programs (human-readable code) and object programs (compiled binary code) are protected, because both are concrete expressions of the programmer's work.
Why not others:
- (a) Algorithms are abstract ideas/methods, and programming languages are tools — neither is protected by copyright under TRIPS
- (b) There is no distinction between "application" and "basic" programs — an OS is equally protected; the claim about hardware cost is irrelevant
- (d) While algorithm descriptions (documents) are protected as text, programs implementing those algorithms are also independently protected as original expression
Key rule: Copyright protects expression (code), not ideas (algorithms) — both source and object code qualify.
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