Hi Michael,

The short answer is, it depends.

Intellectual property is protected by one or both of two mechanisms. Patent (basicallly in either the utility or design subsets) and copyright laws exist to protect the producers of intellectual property. Patent protection requires registration, which requires proving that you have indeed come up with something new and original, and that you came up with it first. (Contrary to popular belief, even if someone else files for a patent first, disputes are decided by the proof of first work. Of course this can be extremely expensive and there is a presumption on behalf of the first filer, but that is no guarantee.)

Copyright protection, as I understand it, requires no such registration. Copyright protection only requires that you declare it when you publish your work. So yes, if you write a story and put "Copyright 2005" on it, it is fully copyright protected. Of course, some copyright protection can be registered, as in the case of corporate logos, slogans, etc..

Now the caveat which goes to your question. Neither patent nor copyright protection is permanent. I, for example, own the registered copyright for a corporate logo. If I want to maintain that protection, I have to pay a fee every several years. Since I shut down the company, it's safe to say that I won't be renewing the registration next time. So at that time, anyone who wants to will be able to start using my logo. In the meantime I have no intention of spending money defending a logo that I no longer have a use for, so in a practical way my logo is already unprotected.

I don't know how long general copyright protection remains in force, but there's a reason that they always include the year in copyright notices. So, in answer to your question, yes. "Just because a software package is an old version" that does "make it legal to..." do whatever, if it's old enough.

Now the question is, how old does it have to be? And I suspect the answer to that, as in the case of my logo, has more to do with how interested OrCad is in paying lawyers to defend obsolete software than in the details of copyright law. Frankly, I suspect they're more concerned with Protel and Mentor Graphics than they are Bob's Electronics Hobby Shop using their 20 year old software. (Well, 10 or 15 years old anyway.) But eventually, it won't matter even if they do care.