The new circular removes itself in application to individuals. Particularly, Circular 13 only applies to “administrative agencies, organizations and enterprises relating to the manufacturing activities of software products in the Software Products List stipulated by the MOIC”.

The software product manufacturing process under Circular 13 remains basically unchanged. Included in the process are the following seven stages: (1) requirement determination; (2) analysis and design; (3) programming, coding; (4) software testing; (5) software completion and packaging; (6) software installation, transfer, instruction, maintenance and warranty; and (7) software publishing and distribution. However, each stage has been defined in more detail which provides more transparency for actual implementation.

Circular 13 regulates determining process-qualified software product manufacturing activities under Article 4.1. The regulation has been streamlined in comparison with Circular 16, stating that software product manufacturing activities must undergo at least the stage of (1) requirement determination, or (2) analysis and design (see full list of stages above) to be determined as process-qualified. Under Circular 16, the required stages depended on the type of software product.

Circular 13 also provides specific types of documents for qualification corresponding to each stage. For example, some typical proofing documents for operations in stage (1) include: Idea description on product development method, description on product properties (requirements), etc.

Circular 13 took effect on 19 August 2020. Software manufacturing activities which were determined to be process-qualified prior to this will remains unchanged until their respective expiration date.