Source code and intellectual property

They base their findings on an expert opinion by lawyers who probably have every legal competence but obviously have less idea about cybernetics, computer science and IT science.

One of the accusations is secret appropriation of a competitor's source code. Everyone in the SAP community knows that the SAP source code, with its numerous Abap tables, is ultimately an open book. SAP obviously cares less about its own intellectual property, but the accusation is that SAP has helped itself elsewhere.

In computer science, tracing back ideas and thus intellectual property is sometimes a challenging process. Often, methods and procedures are discussed for years at relevant congresses and universities before someone is found who also packages this knowledge into an algorithm. As a result, there are very few software patents worldwide.

Naturally, there are solution paths and operating procedures that are unique and thus worth protecting. An efficient sorting algorithm is certainly intellectual property of the inventor to be protected. Likewise, in the future, many programs for quantum computing will remain the intellectual property of researchers.

The extent to which ERP programs can be protected has not yet been decided: a very good friend of mine was on a study trip to China about ten years ago; there, at a university, he was shown an ERP system he had developed himself. He was asked to take a seat in front of a screen and possibly test the program himself - he was able to operate it perfectly from the very first moment, because it behaved like the numerous SAP systems on which he had been working for decades.