Neural-network legal issues are well-presented in "Intellectual Property Protection for Neural Networks" by Donald Wenskay, Neural Networks, V3, 1990, pp. 229-236. [Greg Aharonian (srctran@world.std.com), comp.ai.neural-nets, 1/12.] (Greg circulates abstracts of all neural-network patents, and can supply the electronic text for $20. Hardcopy from the patent office is $3.)

Software is sometimes licensed for use, but packaged software is usually sold outright to the user in the same manner as a book. (Whether accompanying "license" restrictions have legal weight has not yet been determined. Software houses want to retain control yet avoid paying property tax on the software they've distributed.) If copyright is the controlling legal doctrine, you have the right to sell or otherwise dispose of any software you've purchased. You may also copy it for archival purposes. The archival copy may be transferred to another person only if you transfer your rights to the original program. You can't sell one copy and still use the other, but you can presumably use or sell the archival copy if the original has been destroyed. [Partly from Don Berman (berman@corwin.ccs.northeastern.edu), cni-copyright, 12/29.]

It is not clear what rights you have to old software after you purchase an upgrade. The Software Publishers Association (SPA) claims that you must retain original purchase orders and software in order for your upgrade licenses to be valid. You can't sell the old software without selling the upgrade rights as well. [Michael S. Hines (mshines@ia.purdue.edu), cni-copyright, 12/29.] The SPA says that you can't even run the old version in parallel with the new one, unless the upgrade license gives you permission. [Laura N. Gasaway (unclng@unc.oit.unc.edu), ibid, 12/30.] Sec. 109(a) of the copyright act may say differently. You may be able to sell your old software as long as you deliver all original disks and documentation, destroy backup copies, and otherwise meet terms of the original license. [Don Berman, ibid.] A software upgrade is typically a new edition of the program, registered with its own copyright. Under copyright law, purchase of two different editions gives you full rights to each. License terms may not be enforceable, especially "shrinkwrap" contracts of adhesion on over-the-counter or mail-order sales. [Glenn Tenney (tenney@netcom.com), ibid, 12/31.] Upgrades provide an opportunity for software publishers to introduce genuinely binding license terms, but few seem to have done so. "Competitive upgrades," where you get a discount to switch brands, clearly give you the right to use both products. [Brian Kahin (kahin@hulaw1.harvard.edu), ibid, 1/1.]

The Software Publisher's Association has an $80 "Software Management Guide" and video/brochure kit, including its SPAudit package for identifying pirated software. [CW, 5/18.]

Software is in the public domain only if it is produced by the government or is explicitly placed in the public domain. Public-domain software may be legally copied, modified, sold commercially, distributed as shareware, or used in any other way -- regardless of any author's wishes to the contrary. (Falsely claiming authorship might constitute fraud or plagiarism, though.) Freeware is less well defined under US law. It is not necessarily free, as you may have to pay media, handling, or shipping charges. Neither are you free to copy or modify the code if it is copyrighted. (Or, as the British would say, if the code is copyright.) Shareware restrictions on use have doubtful status, but copyright prevents making copies or derivative works except as permitted by the copyright owner. (Courts have not settled whether loading and running a binary program on a single CPU can violate copyright.) Common restrictions are that code may not be modified, that the author's name may not be removed, and that the program may not be distributed for profit. Copyleft, used in GNU software, permits any modification of the source as long as all source code is made available without charge. Commercial packages compiled with the GNU C++ compiler, for instance, may have a proprietary binary but must make any incorporated GNU source libraries available and linkable. Few companies have been willing to permit this, even though GNU has the only C++ compiler available on more than two or three (actually 50!) platforms. (Other corporate concerns are that GNU code is not stable -- it constantly evolves -- and that it is supported only by third-party consultants.)

Reverse engineering (or decompiling) is another sticky legal domain. A 9/10 ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit established that it is fair use to fix and examine code as necessary to identify and understand any elements that are not protected by copyright. (Atari had examined Nintendo's game code to bypass a lockout mechanism.) This was the highest-level ruling to date on the legality of reverse engineering. [EE Times, 10/5.] The 9th District Court of Appeals echoed this ruling on 10/20 when it permitted Accolade's copying and disassembly of Sega's game code as necessary to gain an understanding of the unprotected functional elements and to create non-infringing software for interface purposes. The situation would have been different if Sega had published an interface specification. The court also ruled that triggering a Sega trademark screen display was not a trademark violation if it was the only way Accolade could gain access to the unprotected code elements. Sega will appeal. IEEE was going to support Accolade with an amicus curiae brief, but backed off after protests by IBM, Apple, and others. [Robert Bellinger, EE Times, 10/26.]