文档介绍：Information & Management 34 (1998) 161±173
Acceptable protection of software intellectual property:
a survey of software developers and lawyers
Effy Oz*
Management Division, Penn State University, Great Valley, 30 E. Swedesford Road, Malvern, PA 19355, USA
Accepted 18 May 1998
Abstract
The article reports the results of a survey on the optimal legal way to protect developers' rights to their intellectual property in
the US. Two groups were incorporated: software developers and attorneys. The majority of both groups favor copyright as the
legal method, but attorneys prefer patenting with a longer protection period. There is no difference between the groups with
respect to the desired length of copyright protection. Majorities in both groups prefer the current period of 75 years for
corporations. paring information from 1992 and 1996, we ®nd that software developers now are more in favor of
protection of user interfaces. We found little differences between the groups regarding different categories of software. We
also found high proportions of support for protection of source and object codes. Both groups prefer stronger protection for
systems than application software. Attorneys, more than developers, favored greater protection for application software than
for game software. We expected software developers to favor regulations that would force owners of systems software to offer
their creation to any interested party for equal terms. To our surprise, there was signi®cantly more support for this idea among
attorneys than among the developers. Majorities in both groups support a special law for protection of software intellectual
property. # 1998 Elsevier Science . All rights reserved
Keywords: Software; Software developers; Intellectual property; Copyright; Patent
1. Introduction individual developers of software. However, it must
also be legally practical to follow and prosecute
The software industry has e extremely offenses.
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