1988 Volume 30 Issue 10 Pages 945-956
A strong interest has been shown to a legal protection of computer program, a typical intellectual property in the information industry. In Japan, there is a strong belief that the scope of copyright protection of program should be restricted and a degree of its protection should be weakened as compared with the protection given to other ordinary works since a program is a specific type of copyrightable work. The purpose of this article is to review such a special copyrightable work theory and to develop a criticism to such a theory from both theoretical and practical aspects, as well as to validate an appropriateness of the copyright protection since we can use an abundant accumulation of precedents under the copyright laws to give a practical solution to specific problems arising in connection with the legal protection of programs. An interface issue and the protection of program's SSO shall be also reviewed from such a viewpoint.
