Interdisciplinary Solutions from Computer Science and Jurisprudence

Within the framework of the joint research effort "Unternehmenssoftware" funded by the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, the chair of software engineering at the university of Freiburg i.Br. (Prof. Dr. Andreas Podelski) and the chair of intellectual property at the University of Mannheim (Prof. Dr. Louis Pahlow) cooperate since 2009 to achieve an interdisciplinary solution to the present problems.

Computer science and jurisprudence jointly develop a concept for the planning, design, and management of contracts. The idea is to turn an easily composed, yet efficient and machine-readable specification of the requirements of the software to be developed and the automatic verification of the requirements into a constituent part of the development contract. The design of this contract ensures legal relevance of the technical verification results.

Thereby, acceptance of the developed product is partly automated, in this respect objectified, and less time-consuming. In addition, a significant part of software contracts becomes independent from the legal system and thus allows for easier international cooperation.

A set of pre-formulated model contracts ensures that software development orders become conductible even for small IT-companies without extensive and costly legal advice.