國際物品賣買契約에 관한 UN協約의 컴퓨터 소프트웨어去來에의 適用과 限界에 관한 硏究

A Study on the Application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and Its Limits

Today, computer software is one of the important foundations for the information industry. Software has been being delivered via the Internet, mass-produced and delivered on a disk, or custom designed for a particular party, with which both national and international legal community face new software challenges, including the problem that computer software cannot easily be categorized as goods or services. So, the legal community struggles how to fit software into the existing legal structures. Various domestic laws are not treating electronic software consistently. Depending on the jurisdiction, the same software is treated as the sale of goods, or the providing of services. In international ground, this results in the question whether the 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods ("CISG") can apply to international software transactions. The issue herewith concerns: (i) whether software can be regarded as the "goods" under the CISG., and (ii) should all software be treated the same regardless of the means of delivery? This article examines the application of CISG to software transactions and its limits. Following the Section I of Introduction, Section II overviews the provisions in CISG concerning its application to the software transactions. Section III examines. comparatively how the German and the U.S. domestic contract law are treating software transactions. Section IV, particularly according to Article 7(1) of CISG that requires an autonomous uniform interpretation, discusses the applicability of CISG to the international software transactions and addresses the limits of such application, followed by Section V that summaries and concludes this article.