Can software copyright protect software ideas, algorithms and technical solutions?

The scope of software copyright protection is the expression of programs and their technical documents, that is, the expression of sentence sequences or instruction sequences and the text description of related software, and does not extend to the ideas, processing procedures, operating methods or mathematical concepts used in developing software. However, software can apply for utility model patents to obtain the protection of software methods. The first paragraph of Article 11 of China's Patent Law stipulates that for the method patent, the patent implementation behavior includes not only using the patented method for production and business purposes, but also using, promising to sell, selling and importing products directly obtained according to the patented method, which is called "extended protection". Generally speaking, methods in the sense of patent law include manufacturing methods, operating methods and uses. However, only manufacturing methods can enjoy extended protection, because only in this way can products in the sense of patent law be produced. For other methods, the act of applying for a patent is just "using the method". Some computer programs may involve manufacturing methods, such as computer programs that control the manufacturing process of products. Running these methods can directly obtain the corresponding products, and should be able to expand the protection of the directly obtained products; However, the method patents related to computer programs only involve operation methods, such as measurement methods, technical data processing, computer hardware control, client applications and so on. It seems that products cannot be directly obtained by running these methods, and there is great controversy in the industry about whether these patents can be applied with extended protection. Whether extended protection can be carried out is also closely related to the assumption of tort liability and the jurisdiction of the case.