Software lifecycle data

In the case of the bottle, the major impact is due to raw material productioa This properly enables ns to nse the data available in the database of some software packages. In other consitmer sectors, it is other phases of the lifecycle, which have a predominant impact. The environmental impact of some of these phases can only be described by a lifecycle assessment, which is liable to yield a resnlt that depends very closely on the perimeter of the study. 

All the items of software including documents, data (and its structures) and support software shall be covered by a suitable, readily understood and fully documented configuration management system (CMS) throughout the lifecycle. An item of software or dociunentation shall not be accessible (to persons other than those responsible for its design and verification) imtil it is approved and under configuration... 

In trying to relate IPR concepts and methods to the entire product lifecycle, it must be taken into account that, in general, patents are independent of any particular product and project. Therefore, patents must be maintained and defended as long as their subject has a commercial value for (potential) competitors. Product data in a project must be intensively protected from start of development (SoD) to start of production (SoP) and possibly less intensively afterwards (e.g., if they are created in a collaborative project that will be subsequently diminished). From the SoP until the end of a product life cycle (EoL), growing focus will be on the protection of products, spare parts and embedded software against possible counterfeits (Fig. 18.1). In that case reverse engineering (see Chap. 12) must be prevented or at least inhibited. 

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