Copyright Protection for ASIC Gate Configurations: PLDs, Custom and Semicustom Chips Academic Article

abstract

• Conventional wisdom holds that computer software and computer hardware require two different species of intellectual property protection. Software is thought best protected by copyright law, while hardware is thought best protected by patent law, trade secret law or the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. Recent technological and legal developments blur software-hardware distinctions, as courts have extended copyright protection to object code, firmware and microcode, and patent protection to software. This note argues that the standard industry conceptions of hardware and software are inadequate to answer the legal question of what is copyrightable as a computer program. Furthermore, it considers whether application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), which are, typically, semi-custom hardware solutions to engineering design problems traditionally solved in software, should qualify as computer programs for purposes of copyright protection.

authors

• Lunney, Joseph

published proceedings

• Stanford Law Review

author list (cited authors)

• Lunney, G

complete list of authors

• Lunney, Glynn S Jr

publication date

• November 1989

publisher

• Stanford Law School  Publisher

published in

• Stanford Law Review  Journal

keywords

• Law

URI

• https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/437

start page

• 163

end page

• 206

volume

• 42

issue

• 1

URL

• https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/437/