Method, system and program product for determining java software code plagiarism and infringement

• US 7,493,596 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2004
• Issued: 02/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Stading, Tyron Jerrod, Casey, Margot Bruce, Atkin, Steven Edward
• Primary Examiner(s): CHAVIS, JOHN Q
• Application Number:
  US10/881,973
• Publication Number:
  US 20060005166A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,693 Days
• Field of Search: 717/124
• US Class Current: 717/124
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/16 Program or content traceability, e.g. by watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/18 Legal services

Abstract

An analysis tool extracts class data from Java objects within a potential plagiarizing Java program and the original Java program, and then compares classes common to the potential plagiarizing program and the original across various performance metrics. Similarities disclosed by the analysis tool are output for user or programmatic comparison of the matches between the potentially plagiarizing Java program byte code and the original program'"'"'s byte code.

Claims

1. A method for evaluating Java software to determine similarity with other Java software, the method comprising the steps of:

extracting class data from compiled code of a software program;

extracting class data from an compiled code of an original software program;

determining class data of the software program matching the class data from the original software program;

outputting the comparison as a function of class data; and

determining a similarity of the software program to the original software program based on the comparison output;

wherein the determining occurs even if a Java source code is not available for at least the software program.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein:

the class data includes method signatures, byte codes and byte arguments; and

the method further comprises storing the class data in a database.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the software programs are determined to be similar according to user input based on the comparison output.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein:

the software programs are determined to be similar according to statistical analysis based on the comparison output; and

the method further comprises;

compiling the information for each software program into a matrix to facilitate the comparison

executing a text mining algorithm on the matrix for each common method of both the software program and original software program to determine similarities between the two methods, wherein the text mining algorithm determines similarities based on one or more of clustering, classification, and association) performs.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of extracting class data from Java objects in the software program, wherein the analysis is performed on top of complied Java code and the semantic space is limited to reduce an occurrence of false positives and false negatives and provide a higher degree of accuracy in determining duplicated code.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the class data is taken directly from a binary class file for an object in the software program.