Software and Open Source

Protect your Software

Software can be protected by copyright, trade secret, data base rights and patent protection. Each of those protection measures protects a different aspect of your Software and only the correct mix of protection measures can provide a sufficient protection from being copied. This requires a full understanding of Software. Our vast experience in protecting Software allows us to understand your Software and protect it in the best way.

Many believe that Software cannot be protected by patents. This is not true. In fact, Software can be protected by patents if the software solves a technical problem and is new and non-obvious. We recommend patent protection for Software in particular for innovative features which can be easily copied by your competitors.  

Open Source

Programmers include more and more pre-programmed modules or libraries which are licensed by open source licenses in their Software. The use of such open source licenses can have important consequences for your Software. For example, you could be obliged to license your full Software under the same license terms. This may imply that you shall distribute the Software for free or that you have to publicly disclose the source code of your Software. In particular, the latter can be a severe risk for your trade secrets and your proprietary source code.