Читать книгу (ISC)2 CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide - Mike Chapple - Страница 216

There is some ongoing controversy over how the intellectual property contained in software should be protected. Software seems to clearly qualify for copyright protection, but litigants have disputed this notion in court.

Similarly, companies have applied for and received patents covering the way that their software “inventions” function. Cryptographic algorithms, such as RSA and Diffie–Hellman, both enjoyed patent protection at one point. This, too, is a situation that poses some legal controversy.

At the time this book went to press, the U.S. Supreme Court was considering the case Google v. Oracle, a dispute that has been working its way through the court system for over a decade. This case centers on issues surrounding the Java API and is likely to set a precedent that will govern many software intellectual property issues.

In the technology field, patents have long been used to protect hardware devices and manufacturing processes. There is plenty of precedent on the side of inventors in those areas. Recent patents have also been issued covering software programs and similar mechanisms, but these patents have become somewhat controversial because many of them are viewed by the technical community as overly broad. The issuance of these broad patents led to the evolution of businesses that exist solely as patent holding companies that derive their revenue by engaging in legal action against companies that they feel infringe upon the patents held in their portfolio. These companies are known by many in the technology community under the derogatory name “patent trolls.”