Intellectual property law for software professionals

Due perhaps to the exponential growth of the use of computers, and the corresponding increase in the monetary value of software and computer related technologies, the legal issues surrounding these technologies are increasingly affecting software professionals such as researchers, developers, publishers and others. The author believes that it is now essential for software professionals to understand intellectual property regimes such as trade secrets, trademarks, and especially copyrights and patents and how they specifically relate to software and computer related developments.