Congress, of course, did amend our copyright law in 1980 to make it clear that software is copyrightable. Likewise, legislation was enacted in foreign countries and the European Union in past years, stipulating that software is only copyrightable, i.e. not patentable. Thus, it is not surprising that Ralph Oman, the former Register of Copyrights, and others maintain that an international consensus in favor of copyright protection has emerged, even though many believe that copyright protection is an artificial construct inasmuch as the aims of copyright law and computer programming are diametrically opposed, the former stressing subjective, individualistic, creative elements, and the latter, objective, technical and scientific systematization.
Software is functional, non-literal by nature as it performs a task or generates an output.
And more and more countries follow the lead of the United States and sanction the patenting of software. The shift to patents is also influenced by the recent decisional trend limiting the scope of copyright protection on the one hand, while expanding the scope of patent protection for software on the other hand.