The paper discusses the initial stages of computerization and the legal questions arising from it. At the
beginning the computers were produced as single pieces and prototypical items. In the 1950s there started
the mass production of the computer systems. The fi rst computers were equipped with the software in the machine languages. In the course of time there were however worked out the algorythmic languages
of upper level. These languages were more convenient for the programmer since they operated with the
symbolic names of variables. The beginning of the real standardization of personal computers fall upon
the early 1980s when the IBM firm - through rendering its entire PC XT model technical documentation
gratuitously available - imposed on customers its world-wide standard of systemic and usable software.
It is against this background that there were presented the legal aspects of this new intellectual interest
that sprang into existence.
In the late 1960s the antimonopoly law forced the computer producers to separate their software
from the equipment and to offer the software it to the customers as a separate product. At that time the
lawyers were not sure and unanimous about how to treat such product from the point of view of the right
of ownership and the freedom of disposing of it. It was believed that the patent law would provide the
right instrument for the protection of such innovative result (entirely new, original and non-obvious).
What nevertheless was accepted was the protection of software on the basis of copyright. It was done
while assuming that the software demonstrates the minimum of originality. The settling of the question of
originality was left to the courts of law. Regarding the computer programs as subject-matter of copyright
protection enlarges the scope of traditional products protected by copyright.