re: #188 Belafon

The software engineering field uses copyrights everywhere. The entire enforcement mechanism of GNU is based on copyrights.

Copyright is the traditional IP protection model for software. Patent protection for software is a more recent (and controversial) legal development.

A copyright on software only protects against literal copies. If someone takes the ideas from another’s software and codes it up differently, copyright protection won’t apply, but a patent on the relevant ideas would apply. However, patents are harder to get than copyrights, expire, and SCOTUS may end up killing off the idea of patenting software entirely.