PureBasic Forums - English

Hello.

I describe myself as a programmer but not a buisness man or whatever you call it when you have you'r own buisness and do stuff.

i am still a young man and i dont have any clue about legel rights.

what is the diffrence between "copyright" and "trademark"
and if i invent a software even the most stupid or most advanced
can it be patanted? i guess not since if there was a thing like this
when netscape first came out they could patented it?

i am so mixed up since i dont know if i can protect my own creations

what can i do and what suggestions you can give if you had a product and you would like to sell/market what ever.

thank you.

> what is the diffrence between "copyright" and "trademark"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent

But in a nutshell:

Copyright means what you've created cannot be used by another, but it
won't stop others creating similar works. For example, Microsoft Windows
is copyrighted, and nobody can sell an OS that has Windows source code
in it, but they can create their own OS instead (eg. Linux) even if it looks
like Windows (eg. the Start menu, etc).

Trademark means the name, image, logo, etc of the item cannot be used
by anybody else under any circumstances. For example, you cannot sell
your own OS and call it Windows, because the name is trademarked.
Also, you can't use a similar name, such as was attempted by the people
who created Lindows.

A patent lets you create something that nobody else is allowed to copy
for a set period of time, but I don't know how this applies to software.
Usually it applies to physical items, such as a new type of gadget etc.

Disclaimer: Regarding all that I said above -- I Am Not A Lawyer.

I'm not into legall stuff myself, but my best advice is to get yourself some good crack protection software with some serial management
functions that suits your needs.

You have some copyrights to your materials by default, but you must register trademarks to prevent others from using the same program
names and such for their own needs.

Anyway, if you have no money, you have no realistic means to claim and protect your rights, trademarks ,patents or whatever, so I don't
think this will matter at all. And it will certainly not stop people from downloading and using your software without paying for it.

I'm checking out EXECryptor myself, and everything seems fine so far. If theres no surprises with it, I'll register.

Software patents are in big debate.
However afaik they dont aply, and hopefully newer will be!
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/