Legal Question in Technology Law in India

Re: Legal obligations in selling software as shareware.

1. In Theory you do not need a license but you need to have Central and Sales Tax Numbers assigned to you so as to collect taxes leviable on the program and then pay it to the Government.

2. However for your intellectual property protection two steps are necessary.

a. Protect your program under the Copyright Act by filing for copyright protection

b. If the programs can be patented, then file for a software patent application. If you intend to sell the program in other countries you may need to file patent applications in those countries as well. But you need to first check if a similar program has not been patented elsewhere.

Depending on your finances, you can take all these steps.

This response answers the preliminary question raised by you.

Best,

N. Ramaswami