Intellectual property rights. Licensing
The first presentation (Intellectual property rights - Basic features) lays down the principles of the intellectual property protection. The lecture presents the outlines of the basic protection forms (copyright, patent and trademark) and the most important characteristics of those legal documents which provide eligible protection for the creations - besides the features of the EU regulation and the specific EU directives, the presentation also deals with the international (copyright and industrial right) conventions.
The second presentation discusses the copyright protection of software and database. First of all it intends to give a more detailed explanation of copyright, then points out the special characters of software and database laws. The lecture emphasizes those features of the regulations which grant special rights to the authors and users of these functional works (for instance points out those special “free use” exemptions which allow certain activities of the legal acquirer of software and database without the authorization of the right-holder).
The third presentation (License agreements) provides a general licensing overview. A license is a specific agreement, in which the author authorizes the use of his work and the user is obliged to pay remuneration therefore - the characteristics of this specific form of agreement are presented with especial regard to the requirements of the IT sector and the specific formalities of online contract conclusion.
The fourth presentation (Software license agreements) deals with the software licensing issues. In the first part the types of computer programs are discussed, because they determine the provisions in the specific license agreements (furthermore the differences between proprietary software and free software are frequently mentioned nowadays). After the general exposition of rights and restrictions in software license agreements, the actually used terms and conditions (licensing models) of real software manufacturers are presented.