Software: sentido e limites da sua apropriação jurídica

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Alexandre Libório Dias
• Data de Publicação: 2004
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/28785
• topic: software; programa de computador; direitos de autor; direitos do utente; Concorrência

Software: meaning and limits of its protection. The problematic legal nature of software has confronted two perspectives concerning software legal protection. On one hand, copyright law protection. On the other hand, patent law or sui generis IP protection. Legislators and case-law have favoured the copyright approach. Somehow, the European Patent Convention has conditioned the debate, since computer programs as such were excluded from patent protection. Moreover, the EC Directive has provided copyright protection for computer programs. In this paper, which has been presented at a conference promoted by the Porto District of the Portuguese Bar, the Portuguese implementation Act is analyzed in comparison with the provisions of the EC directive. Once again, it is argued that the Portuguese Act does not fully comply with the EC directive. Moreover, it is argued that the imperative of interoperability should prevail over any other legal protection of software, and that it should not result in a limitation to the rights of users, in particular in what concerns error correction and adaptation to the specific needs of the user. Finally, it is remarked the limited criminal nature of software Portuguese legal protection.