China is to help overseas companies to gain confidence in the country's efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR), as President Hu Jintao met with Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates yesterday (Tuesday local time) in the first stop of his US visit.

 

"The talks between President Hu and Gates are not about saying that China in the future will not have any problems with pirated software," Wang Ziqiang, spokesman for the State Copyright Bureau, told a press conference yesterday.

 

"These talks are a signal to show the stance of the Chinese government in protecting IPR and cracking down on IPR violations."

 

Hu's meeting with Gates in Seattle was to give overseas investors and companies confidence in China's determination to crack down on IPR violations and to believe that piracy can be limited to a small scale with the consistent efforts of the Chinese government, Wang said.

 

China has passed regulations recently that computers manufactured and in China must be pre-installed with legitimate operating system and imported computers sold in China must be pre-installed with legal operating system, as an effort to strengthen IPR protection.

 

"We are right now working to promote legitimate software in enterprises, especially in state-owned enterprises where government has more control," said Zhang Qin, deputy commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2006)