Edexcel GCSE Computer Science (1CP2) · Issues and impact › Ethical and legal issues
Practise Intellectual property and licensing. 11 exam-style questions on this subtopic, at up to four difficulty levels, with full mark schemes and a progress tracker. Free, no account needed.
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Define the term 'open-source software'.
Software whose source code anyone can view, modify and share.
Define the term 'software licence'.
A legal agreement stating how the software may be used.
State the type of intellectual property protection that the student has infringed.
Copyright
Explain how the company could protect the design of the sensor.
Apply for a patent, giving exclusive rights to the invention for up to 20 years.
State the type of intellectual property protection that automatically applies to the recording as soon as it is made.
copyright
Sample questions
Written for this site in the style of Edexcel exam questions. They are not taken from real past papers.
Question 1Easy3 marks
(a) Identify the item that is automatically protected by copyright as soon as it is created.[1]
The source code of a program someone has written
An idea for an app that has not been written down
A new invention that makes batteries last longer
The name of a company
(b) Define the term 'open-source software'.[1]
(c) State the type of intellectual property protection that a company can register to protect its logo.[1]
Show the answer and mark scheme
(a)Answer: The source code of a program someone has written
(b)Answer: Software whose source code anyone can view, modify and share.
software whose source code is made freely available for anyone to view, change and share (under the terms of its licence)
(c)Answer: A trademark
trademark / trade mark
Question 2Medium4 marks
A school is considering using open-source software. Explain two benefits of open-source software for the school.[4]
Show the answer and mark scheme
Answer: No licence fees across hundreds of computers; students can legally install it at home (also: can be customised, community support).
it is usually free to download and use
so the school saves money on licence fees, even across hundreds of computers
the source code is available and can be modified
so the school, or a developer, can adapt it to meet its needs
it can be installed on as many computers as needed
so students can also install it legally at home
it is often supported by a large community of users and developers
who find and fix bugs quickly and provide help online
Question 3Hard4 marks
A company is developing a product using code from an open-source project. The project's licence says that anyone who distributes a modified version of the code must also release their source code under the same licence.
Explain the implications of this licence for the company.[4]
Show the answer and mark scheme
Answer: It would have to publish its own modified source code, so competitors could reuse it and it could not stay proprietary — the price of saving development time.
if the company distributes its product, it must release the source code of its modified version under the same licence, so anyone who receives it can view, change and share it
competitors could then see and reuse the company's code
so it would be difficult to sell the product as closed-source proprietary software or to keep its methods secret
the company could instead choose code with a permissive licence, or write that part of the code itself
but using the open-source code saves development time and money, and the code has been tested by many people
the company must also keep the original copyright and licence notices