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.

In addition to the above-mentioned activities, in its Software Information Library, SOFTIC provides a reference service with domestic and foreign books, documents and judicial precedents on the protection of rights related to software and on the software markets in major countries. Further, the SOFTIC web site 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.