Reverse Engineering in Japan and the Global Trend Towards Interoperability
AbstractThe author examines Japanese copyright law relating to the reverse engineering of computer software and compares it to the US, European and Australian position. In Japan reverse engineering by decompiling computer software is considered fair dealing in terms of copyright protection, to facilitate interoperability between software applications. The paper compares the relevant case law and legislative positions of the different jurisdictions. It is argued that the benefits of uniformity in this area warrants an appropriate international agreement which could be implemented via TRIPS. |