The Impact of the European Product Liability Directive on Software Engineering

Doriana Cobârzan, Richard Bubel, Torsten Ullrich, Torsten Ullrich

2025

Abstract

The European Commission’s revised Product Liability Directive was signed in October 2024 and will come into force in 2026. The revision extends the concept of a product to include software and software-based services, and significantly strengthens the legal rights of customers in the event of damage caused by software. This makes liability issues a key aspect of software development. The precise manner in which national legislation is to be drafted and interpreted remains to be clarified. However, the general direction has been sufficiently outlined to enable the implementation of preventative measures, which are discussed briefly here. This article looks at the legal implications of the directive for software producers, focusing on third-party components. It also discusses guidelines to ensure high software quality and improve the legal position of the producer. The present work is concerned exclusively with the Product Liability Directive, notwithstanding its embedding within a framework of regulations, including, for example, the AI Act and the General Data Protection Regulation.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Cobârzan D., Bubel R. and Ullrich T. (2025). The Impact of the European Product Liability Directive on Software Engineering. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE; ISBN 978-989-758-742-9, SciTePress, pages 626-634. DOI: 10.5220/0013363100003928

in Bibtex Style

@conference{enase25,
author={Doriana Cobârzan and Richard Bubel and Torsten Ullrich},
title={The Impact of the European Product Liability Directive on Software Engineering},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE},
year={2025},
pages={626-634},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013363100003928},
isbn={978-989-758-742-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE
TI - The Impact of the European Product Liability Directive on Software Engineering
SN - 978-989-758-742-9
AU - Cobârzan D.
AU - Bubel R.
AU - Ullrich T.
PY - 2025
SP - 626
EP - 634
DO - 10.5220/0013363100003928
PB - SciTePress