All provincial governments to use authorized software

All provincial-level governments across China will use authorized software by the end of June, a senior official said Tuesday.

Computers of prefecture- and county-level governments will all be installed with copyrighted software by the end of 2013, Wang Zhicheng, deputy director of copyright department of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said at a national conference on intellectual property rights.

Copyrighted software had already been installed in central government departments and agencies by the end of May 2011, Wang said.

In recent years, the country has intensified its efforts to crack down on intellectual property rights infringements and fake products, requiring all government bodies to buy only computers with pre-installed genuine operating system software and to allocate funds to buy authorized software.

So far, governments at all levels have spent a total of 1.06 billion yuan (168.25 million U.S. dollars) on genuine software, according to Wang.

Meanwhile, authorities will step up efforts to promote the use of copyrighted software in companies. Statistics show that genuine software had been installed in 15,256 companies by the end of December.

Greater efforts will be made to establish a long-term mechanism to ensure the use of genuine software among government organs and enterprises, Wang said.