23-Ind-B4 Design of Information Systems · December 2017
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — December 2017 — 98-Ind-B4, Design of Information Systems. 3 hours; closed book, no calculator permitted. The exam comprises four parts: Part A (select 20 terms from the list given and explain each in a sentence or two, no more than 50 words, 2 marks each = 40 marks), Parts B and C (select 2 of 5 questions in each part, 11 marks each = 22 marks per part), and Part D (select 1 of 2 questions, 16 marks). Complete answers to every term and every question in all four parts follow below, not only the minimum selection a candidate would submit on exam day.
Reference texts: Laudon & Laudon, Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, 15th ed.; Schwalbe, Information Technology Project Management, 9th ed.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
1. Trade secret. Protects intellectual work or a product based on a formula, device, pattern, or compilation of information not generally known, so long as it is not based on information in the public domain and the owner takes reasonable steps to keep it confidential (e.g., a proprietary algorithm or manufacturing process). Protection lasts indefinitely, provided secrecy is maintained, but offers no protection once the secret is independently discovered or publicly disclosed.
2. Copyright. A legal grant protecting creators of original intellectual and artistic works — including, in most jurisdictions, computer software — from having their work copied by others for any purpose, for a defined term (typically the creator's life plus a fixed number of years). Copyright protects the specific expression of an idea (the actual code, text, or artwork), not the underlying idea, procedure, or method itself.
3. Patent. Grants the owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for a fixed period (typically 20 years from filing), in exchange for the inventor publicly disclosing exactly how the invention works. Unlike copyright, a patent protects the underlying idea/method itself, not merely one particular expression of it — a genuinely novel, non-obvious, and useful software-implemented process can, in many jurisdictions, be patented.
Digital technology fundamentally undermines several assumptions all three frameworks were built around. Perfect, costless copying: a digital work can be duplicated infinitely at essentially zero marginal cost with no loss of quality, unlike a physical copy, which historically imposed a natural cost/quality barrier that limited unauthorized copying. Global, instantaneous distribution: the internet lets an infringing copy reach a worldwide audience within minutes, far outrunning the speed at which a rights holder can identify and pursue enforcement, and across jurisdictions whose IP laws and enforcement willingness differ substantially. Difficulty distinguishing expression from idea (copyright) or proving true novelty (patent): software is unusually easy to write in functionally equivalent but textually different form, which strains copyright's expression-not-idea boundary, while the pace of software innovation strains a patent-examination system built around a much slower cadence of physical invention. Trade secrets are especially exposed: a single insider leak, or a security breach (Question B4), can permanently and irreversibly destroy a trade secret's entire value the moment confidentiality is lost, with no recovery mechanism analogous to a copyright or patent infringement suit.
