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By Brazilian Law, the intellectual and patrimony rights of a software or computer program can be protected in different ways. Each of them offers a different type of protection, it has its advantages and disadvantages and it requires the complete understanding to choose one of them.
The software can be registered via Patent Registration, Registration of Computer Program and Copyrights Registration.Get to know each of them:
Having a wider protection, the registration of patent is the most used in the world, however in Brazil there are some limitations for its application. In order to be target of patent, the product must be a model of invention or usefulness, and the software does not fit these models, thus, the source code can not be patented.
However, Brazilian legislation allows that software is patented if it is embraced in some technology or product.
Example: A calculator has internal software that executes all functions of this equipment.
The software developed by a company takes part of its intellectual range, and as any other good, it must be protected.
Thwe protection by registration of patent ensures 20 years for invention and 15 years of protection in case it is a model of usefulness.
“Computer program is an expression of an organized set of instructions in natural or code language, contained in a physical support of any nature, of necessary application in automatic machines of information treatment, gadgets, instruments or peripheral equipment, based on digital or analog technique, in order to make them work for defined goals. Law N. 9.609/98
This type of registration consists on keeping a copy of the original source code for further confront in case there is some kind of plagiarism.
The registration of computer programs or registration of source code has already been very mush used in Brazil when there were few systems of programming. Due to the big diversity of languages of programming that exist in the market, this type of protection is recommended in very specific cases.
It is recommended, for example in order to ensure protection facing members of the developer team and/or other programmers who have developed within the same programming language.
The protection by register of computer Program is for 50 years, giving the holder the exclusiveness in production, use and commercialization of the registered software.
The same way as in the registration of computer programs, this type of protection uses the physical file of a document containing all information of the software (layouts, systematization and structure, table of files, etc.) for further confront in case there is some kind of plagiarism.
The protection by Copyright ensures to its creator the preservation of the rights for 70 years.
The software developed by a company, and that was developed by workers, needs to have the attention to make clear who has the title to support the charges and who will be responsible to make the registration.
With the software being correctly registered, the company has the possibility to firm a contract establishing specific rules over the limit of use and the secrecy of information by the employees. It serves to avoid, for example, that an employee sells information of the project for the competitors or that this person work for another company using its source code.
Besides avoiding that other people or development appropriates your idea, the software register has as its main benefits:
The registration of a copyright has as its end to ensure the Author of an intellectual work the safety over the right for the work. This means that, unless the opposite is proved, the author is the one under whose name the work has been registered.
The Law n. 9.610, of April, 19th, 1998, rules the copyrights.
Access at http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l9610.htm
Software is a set of commands to be used, direct or indirectly, in a computer, in order to produce certain result.
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