Copyright Laws in India Essay -- Technology Computers Essays

Copyright Laws in India This document is intended to give a brief overview of the patent and copyrights laws in India and a brief analysis on global issues related to these laws. India has progressed enormously in the field of technology and is ranked tenth in the pool of scientific and technical personnel in the world. There may be hundreds of economical, legal, ethical issues that might have global impact but discussing all of them here is almost impossible. Only the key issues are focused in this paper. India is quickly growing as leading world software producer. It has occupied a secured place in information technology arena by producing high quality software products and software professionals. India also has a fairly well developed system of infrastructure facilities like power, transport, communication and banking. Government of India has recently adopted an increasing liberal approach towards joint venture and import of technology. The country has also revised its patents Acts after a number of foreign companies brought suit against local firms for breach of patents. While computer programs are not currently patentable in India, the country is not without software protection. The Indian Copyright Law explicitly defines the software as a literary work, which can be protected. The statute gives the Indian Central Govt. power to extent copyright protection to foreign works if needed. With the protective necessary statute in place, India has only to enforce them. Enforcement in Ind ia, as in Mexico, indeed seems to be weak spot in controlling intellectual property. We will discuss the details of patens and copyrights issues of India in following sections of this paper. Overview of Patent laws in India The Indian Patent Law does not contain any specific provision regarding the protection of computer programs. Computer programs are not patentable per se, however a claim to a manner of manufacture, which results in a tangible product that requires the application of an algorithm or a particular computer program, may be patentable. Under Section 3(k) of the Patents (Second Amendment) Bill 1999, "a mathematical or a business method or a computer program or algorithms" is not a patentable invention. It appears that computer programs capable of bringing about a technical effect might be allowed, in pursuant to the recommendations made by the... ... of the program to be free software as well.) would prohibit it. Conclusion Software is special . Neither it can be compared to a copyrighted novel nor to a hardware or machinery. Software should be considered as a special case as it forms a unique nexus between the intangible world of abstract concepts and the concrete world of machinery. New discoveries and inventions are taking place everyday in this field. As we discussed above, there are many ethical issues if we protect the software as any other engineering process and there are many issues if we do not protect them. Being a responsible software engineer, I believe that software should be considered as a separate entity (different from other engineering processes or literary work) and new laws should be defined only applicable to software. References i. The patent and copyrights law in India, http://www.singhania.com/ip/contents.html ii. The Danger of Software Patents - by Richard M. Stallman, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html iii. Philosophies of Free Software and Intellectual Property - by Brett Watson, http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/free-software-philosophy.html