The software market loses billions of dollars every year because of illegal copying. This has particularly been witnessed in Qatar where a report shows that the country has lost millions of dollars to pirates in the software industry (Banerjee 2003, p.98). The duplication is usually done in two different ways namely software duplication and reverse engineering. Through these two methods, pirates have found it easy to duplicate the original works of others and use the pirated software to enrich themselves at the expense of the original producers (Banerjee 2003, p.98). In fact, presently most software shops in Qatar are full of illegally acquired software. However, as earlier stated, this is a global problem that needs joint effort through legislation of policies to protect the intellectual property rights in the software industry.

However, there exist three different methods through which intellectual property rights in the software industry can be protected. These include patents, copyrights, and trademarks. All these methods protect software rights in different ways. A patent is one of the most common intellectual property rights protections. A patent is basically used to protect an ‘idea’, such as, how to produce given software. In this regard, Arai (2012, p.2) reveals that a patent can be used to protect software when it has an innovative idea aimed at enhancing productivity and efficiency. This is extremely important because it prevents the use of someone’s innovative ideas by malicious and unscrupulous pirates.

A patent usually provides this protection by granting exclusive monopoly the right to produce, sell, and utilize the invention for twenty years (Banerjee 2003, p.99). The report indicates that the exclusive monopoly for the production, use, and sale of the software is usually perceived as a reward for the effort and time spent in coming up with the new invention.