SOFTIC has organized several committees to carry out research on the protection of rights related to software under copyright law, industrial property rights law, unfair competition law, antitrust law, the Civil Code, the Commercial Code and other laws and regulations. In addition to convening symposia and seminars at which Japanese and overseas experts can meet to discuss intellectual property rights for software, SOFTIC researches trends abroad in that field. The results are published in reports and in newsletters.
In order to promote the development, distribution and use of software, SOFTIC commends good software products, acts as an escrow agent for software and encourages the use of the escrow system, carries out research on software distribution, and holds seminars.
Pursuant to "Japan Copyright Law" and "The Act Providing Special Regulations for the Registration of Copyrights on Programs", SOFTIC was commissioned by the Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs to act as a registrar for the registration of copyrights on programs, and is active in the advancement of the registration system.
Pursuant to "The Act Concerning the Circuit Layout of a Semiconductor Integrated Circuit", SOFTIC has been commissioned by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry as a registrar for the semiconductor circuit layout right, and is striving to promote the development of semiconductor circuits.
SOFTIC has been cooperating with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) in developing the Computer Software Database (CSDB) used for preliminary technical investigation in examinations of applications for software-related inventions by examiners of the JPO. Toward this end, SOFTIC collects "non-patent literature" (including business-related documents) such as computer software manuals, books, journals, treatises and companies' technical reports concerning software-related technology, provides referential keywords (CS terms) and picks up free words for the collected literature for information retrieval, prepares their summaries, and compiles the information on computer-readable media for inputting the CSDB.
SOFTIC acquired certification (Certification No. 18) as a private dispute resolution business operator from the Ministry of Justice based on the Act on Promotion of the Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution Procedures. We have set up the "Software Dispute Resolution Center" as an affiliated organization to provide settlement mediation services regarding transactions and intellectual property rights disputes regarding software, contents and databases between businesses. We also offer arbitration, neutral evaluation, and independent judgment systems.
In addition to the above-mentioned activities, SOFTIC provides a variety of information, such as a summary of the organization's activities and structure, announcements of events, outlines of activity reports and reports on the registration of copyrightable programs.