Software infringement is the illegal copying, sale or distribution of proprietary software, violating patent law. Intellectual property is protected by copyright, trademark, and patents. Patents give creators exclusive rights to profit from their work. Infringement results in lawsuits and injunctions. Unauthorized sales and copies are considered infringement, while reselling purchased software is not.
Software infringement refers to the illegal copying, sale or distribution of certain proprietary software. It is a form of interference with intellectual property rights. Since most software is patented, software infringement is usually a violation of patent law.
Intellectual property is protected by a number of different laws and legal concepts. Original works of art such as art and music that are for entertainment purposes only are protected by copyright. Identifying marks that represent a brand are protected by the trademark. Functional ideas or inventions, such as software, are protected by patents.
A patent gives the creator of the given intellectual property — the functional idea or invention — the exclusive right to manufacture, distribute, license, or profit from that product. The purpose is to protect the creator’s interest in profiting from his hard work in product development. Since a software or other patented property is not necessarily a tangible object, meaning that someone could make a copy of the object without taking the original copy from the creator, the patent prohibits anyone from using the same concepts or formula to create the object without permission.
Microsoft software, for example, is patented. This is necessary because otherwise someone could make millions of copies of a Microsoft Windows CD and sell them to others for much less than what Microsoft charges for its product. Even if Microsoft would still have its original discs it produced containing the software, it would suffer a financial loss and be unable to benefit from the creation of its product due to the malicious behavior.
When someone infringes a patent by illegally manufacturing or distributing software, it is a software infringement. The patent holder can then file a lawsuit to sue for damages suffered as a result of the infringement. The patentee can also get an injunction, which is a court order to stop the tort.
Software infringement refers only to unauthorized sales and copies. If a person purchases a copy of a software program, decides he does not like it, uninstalls it, and sells the original copies of the disc, this is not software infringement since the manufacturer was paid for the software item and no theft or copying is authorized or distribution has taken place. On the other hand, if the individual allowed others to download the software from his computer or made copies of the discs and distributed them, this would be an example of a software infringement.
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