IP and Software
| Author | Andrés Guadamuz González |
The WIPO Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Regional Seminar on Intellectual Property and Software in the 20th Century: Trends, Issues, Prospects took place in San José, Costa Rica, on August 19 and 20 with the participation of ten governments in the region and over 200 representatives of the software industry. The Seminar provided crucial information to demonstrate the role of software in economic development for countries in Latin America. It covered four themes: IP rights protection of software and its relation to economic development; business models and licensing in the software industry; development of standards in the software field; and the role of public authorities and private companies in software development.
The Seminar highlighted the relevance of, and relationship between, IP rights and software to the governments and software industry of the LAC region. Software procurement and development decisions, standards-development policies, telecommunications and information and communication technology policies are all affected by how IP rights in software are provided, licensed and enforced. This relationship is horizontal from an IP perspective, cutting across both patent (patenting of software) and copyright questions (licensing, particularly open-source). This sector-specific approach to the issues stimulated intense interaction among public authorities and the software industry representatives. The dynamism of the local software industry also served as a catalyst in showcasing rich practical experiences in the issues under debate.
WIPO Magazine invited Mr. Andrés Guadamuz González to develop the topics under discussion at the Seminar. Mr. Guadamuz, a lecturer at the SCRIPT Law and Technology Centre, University of Edinburgh, is an expert on IP and software, and has developed interesting analyses on issues including software patents, open source software licenses and the interplay between proprietary and open source software. In this article Mr. Guadamuz focuses on the issue of software patents, the topic of his presentation in the Costa Rica Seminar.
There is little doubt that the software industry is still one of the powerhouses of the global economy. Despite the recent financial downturn, global worldwide spending on software amounted to some US$257 billion in 2007. Given its economic importance, it is clear that any discussion about the legal protection awarded to software is of the utmost interest to producers, consumers and all economies that share, or want to share, in the growing demand for computer programs.
Software has been remarkably difficult to classify as a specific form of IP subject matter because...
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