Legal Protection of Software - Copyright, Patent and Open Source - Challenges for Business in a Mixed Environment

This thesis aims to provide clues on how software developers could use and distribute proprietary software and open source software to run their business smoothly.Proprietary software is protected by copyright and/or patent that confers the rightholders exclusive rights for the use of their software. The developers of proprietary software use their exclusive rights to secure profits in their businesses. Open source licenses are built upon the existing copyright system to ensure the freedom of use, modification and redistribution of software for the recipients of the software.In this thesis, first, legal basis for software protection available in the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and Japan will be described. Next, the history and characteristics as well as legal issues of open source licenses will be discussed. Further considerations will cover possible legal problems arise around proprietary software and OSS business models. Based on these discussions, possible best practices will be suggested for software developers to protect their software