Regulation of Computer Programs in Slovak Legal Acts

Аннотация

Lattová Silvia - Postgraduate (doctoral) student at the Faculty of Law at Masaryk University, Veveří 70, 611 80 Brno, Czech Republic .Address: Tomášikova 50/E, 831 03 Bratislava, Slovak Republic. E-mail: sisa.lattova@gmail.com

In this paper I would like to briefly address the legal regulation of computer programs in Slovak legal acts, the current problems relating to computer program regulation and their possible future resolutions. Com­puter programs as subjects of intellectual property rights are a quickly developing area which needs to be protected by relevant legal acts. The balance between computer program authors' and users' rights is an issue facing our society today. Therefore, we must consider proper protection of authors' rights, while taking into account authorised users' access to computer programs. The latest copyright law amendment, which came into force at the beginning of November 2013,brings positive and important changes to Slovakia's intellectual property law. This amendment demands change from the current Slovak legislation related to intellectual property rights because it reflects developments in the field of cyber law over the last few years. This amendment aims to bring balance to protecting authors' and users' rights. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer sufficient solutions for many questions arising in the field of intellectual property rights in connection with computer programs. Instead, I focus on illustrating, generally and theoretically, the protec­tion of computer programs as subjects of intellectual property rights.