Xiamen, a city of Fujian Province in Southeast China, is planning to further promote the use of authorized software and to continue the crackdown upon online copyright infringement, focusing on the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in cybercafés, said the municipal administration on culture, press and publication on February 27.

In the past few years, Xiamen has been actively promoting the use of genuine software in government departments and large and medium sized enterprises.

On one hand, based on the progress achieved at the end of 2005 that the municipal and the district governments have already banned the use of pirated software, this year, Xiamen has determined to thoroughly discard the use of illegal software in government departments at the municipal and district levels by the end of 2011.

On the other, the city started to call for the use of genuine software in large and medium sized enterprises as early as 2006. It will make further efforts in this regard, especially targeting at the internet café industry, in which, dozens of businesses were sued by software manufactures last year. Till now most of the cases have been resolved after agreements were signed between the local internet café association and the manufactures.

Recognized as a "national demonstration city for fast development in copyright and IPR protection" several months ago, Xiamen is planning to build a copyright service center in a software industrial park this year to provide legal advice and assistance on copyright-related issues to enterprises and rights owners in the park. Meanwhile, a platform for online publication supervision will also be developed to help enhance IPR protection in today's internet environment.

Source:IPR in China