디지털콘텐츠의 특허법적 보호에 관한 연구

The appropriate and effective protection of digital contents is essential for the development of digital contents. In Korea as well as around world, copyright is the main legal system of protecting digital contents. In addition, the Contents Industry Development Act(CIDA) may protect also protect digital contents. While copyright protects digital contents by awarding copyright owner exclusive rights, the CIDA does from the perspective of unfair competition. This research argues that there are serious limits in protecting digital contents through copyright or the CIDA, and therefore, patent protection of digital contents is inevitable. Copyright and the CIDA cannot protect some elements of idea inherent in the digital content itself. This research is focused on the subject matter of the digital contents itself. In order to meet with the subject matter of the KIPO's patent law, the digital contents itself must be the product as the sort of the category of patent invention. Accordingly, this thesis investigates the definition of the product and goods in the civil law and the value add tax law. In the end, this thesis study the applicable possibility for the digital contents to conform to the subject matter of the patent law. This research aims to provide a means for the digital contents to be efficiently protected by the KIPO's patent law. For this purpose, this research analyzes the meaning and classification of digital contents, what is going on the protection of digital contents around the world and Korea, what are problems in protecting digital contents through copyright and the CIDA, what industry needs, and what the ripple effect would be when digital content is protected by patent.