Chinese President Hu Jintao (L2, front) talks with a student as his wife Liu Yongqing(L4, front) listens during a visit to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, near Seattle, Washington State on April 18, 2006. (Photo: Xinhua)

    BEIJING, April 19 (Xinhua) -- China is to help overseas companies to gain confidence in the country's efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) Wednesday, as President Hu Jintao met with Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates in the first stop of his U.S. visit.

    "The talks between President Hu Jintao and Bill 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.

    "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 on Tuesday was to give overseas investors and companies confidence in China's determination to crack down on intellectual property 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 the protection of intellectual property rights.

    "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. Enditem