– Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
– Copyright (Computer Programs) Regulations 1992.
– Patents Act 1977.
– Patent Office Practice Notices (Patents Act 1977: Patentable Subject Matter of November 2, 2006, February 7, 2008, December 8, 2008 and Patents Act 1977: Patentability of Mental Acts, October 17, 2011).
– Statutory Instrument 2003 No. 2498 The Copyright And Related Rights Regulations 2003.
– Statutory Instrument 1997 No. 3032 The Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997.

Definition: under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, computer programs are classed as literary works and thus are protected by copyright. Database contents, screen layouts and documentation, etc. may also attract copyright. Databases are further protected as a separate class of work (see Section IX. below). Neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression of that program and, as such, are not protected by copyright in computer programs. Patent claims for inventions implemented using computers are allowed, provided the invention as a whole meets the normal substantive patentability criteria, and the inventive contribution is technical in character (see above in Section II-4. “Patentability“). This includes claims to the program itself, or to a program on a program carrier. Such a program claim must be drawn to reflect the features of the invention which would ensure the patentability of the method which the program is intended to carry out when it is run.

Filing: copyright in a computer program is generated at the moment of its creation and therefore no filing is required. For patent protection, see Section II.

Ownership: copyright in a computer program belongs initially to the author, however if the program is created by an employee as part of his or her duties then the copyright belongs to his or her employer subject to any agreement to the contrary. If the computer program is itself computer generated, then the author is taken to be the person who made the necessary arrangements for the creation of the program. Patents relating to computer-implemented inventions belong initially to the inventor. However, inventions made by employees in the scope of their duties belong automatically to the employer, subject to any agreement to the contrary.

Infringement: the following acts constitute infringement if carried out without the permission of the copyright owner: the copying of the program or substantial part thereof; the making of a translation of the program or a substantial part (translation includes a version of the program in which it is converted into or out of a computer language or code or into a different computer language or code, other than incidentally in the course of running the program). Also considered acts of infringement are the importation into the U.K., the possession in the course of a business, the selling or letting for hire, or offer or exposure for sale or hire and the exhibition in public or distribution in the course of a business of an infringing copy of the program, as well as the distribution other than in the course of a business of an infringing copy to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the owner of the copyright. It is an infringement of copyright in a computer program to make or sell any means or to publish information which facilitates the unauthorized removal or circumvention of a technical device applied to a program intended to prevent or restrict acts that are not authorized by the copyright owner of that program and are restricted by copyright. NLA v Meltwater (2011) EWCA Civ 890 related to a media monitoring service which provides its customers with headlines and text extracts of articles from media websites together with hyperlinks to the original articles. The England and Wales Court of Appeal held that the headlines could be capable of being independent literary works, the text extracts could constitute a substantial part of an article, and that customers of the media monitoring service would infringe copyright in the articles by clicking on the links provided by the media monitoring service. A Copyright Tribunal, in CT114/09, confirmed that an end-user license was necessary. However, the question of whether the act of accessing a web page is covered by the “temporary copies” exception has been referred to the Supreme Court and a decision is expected in early 2013. Acts permitted for all “lawful users” of a program include making necessary backup copies, and decompilation, under strict conditions. Decompilation is permitted solely for the purpose of making inter-operable software (“the permitted objective”) rather than a competing software, if and only if the “lawful user” (i) confines the decompiling to such acts as are necessary to achieve the permitted objective, (ii) does not already have readily available the information necessary to achieve the permitted objective, and (iii) neither supplies the information obtained to any person to whom it is not necessary in order to achieve the permitted objective nor uses the information to create a program which is substantially similar in expression to the program decompiled. A “lawful user” may copy or adapt a program, provided that the copying or adapting is necessary for his lawful use and is not prohibited under any terms of an agreement regulating lawful use, and may make copy of or adapt a program for the purpose of correcting errors. Computer programs are excluded from protection of moral rights. It is also not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do. Infringement on a commercial scale or involving devices for circumvention of copy protection measures may also incur criminal liabilities. Patent infringement is discussed in Section II-6.

Duration: copyright in a computer program expires seventy years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies. For computer generated programs the copyright will expire fifty years from the end of the calendar year in which the program was made. Patents for computer-implemented inventions may remain in force for up to twenty years from filing, provided that annual renewal fees are paid.