Software Law

National and international „soft law“ encompasses the widest variety of legal classification, design and enforcement issues. Software law generally regards:

  • Software-Creation,
  • Software Transfer and
  • Software Services and Maintenance.

Contracts on software are frequently „assigned“ to the classic legal areas of purchase law, work and services contract law or leasing law. In detail, however, this basic classification has been constantly adapted to the peculiarities of the software sector. This adjustment process is not completed yet.In addition to the purely contractual, everyday component, the German Copyright Act (based on EU directives) is of great importance. Due to the simple production and dissemination of software, protective measures have to be taken into consideration (including patent and trademark law issues). Thus software as such may be exempted from patent protection (German or European, but not American); however, this does not prevent the authorities from examining and granting industrial property rights in some individual cases.

Software – „Copyright“

Since the intellectual property of software follows copyright laws, similar principles apply as in Copyright Law.For further questions regarding this topic, please do not hesitate to contact one of our experts.