--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 dnl Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.
 dnl
-dnl Copyright (C) 1993-2013 John W. Eaton
+dnl Copyright (C) 1993-2014 John W. Eaton
 ### 
 ### This file is part of Octave.
 ### 
@@ -19,21 +19,21 @@
 ### <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 
 AC_PREREQ([2.62])
-AC_INIT([GNU Octave], [3.8.1-rc4], [http://octave.org/bugs.html], [octave])
+AC_INIT([GNU Octave], [3.8.1], [http://octave.org/bugs.html], [octave])
 
 dnl Note that the version number is duplicated here and in AC_INIT
 dnl because AC_INIT requires it to be static, not computed from
 dnl shell variables.
 OCTAVE_MAJOR_VERSION=3
 OCTAVE_MINOR_VERSION=8
-OCTAVE_PATCH_VERSION=1-rc4
+OCTAVE_PATCH_VERSION=1
 
 dnl PACKAGE_VERSION is set by the AC_INIT VERSION arg
 OCTAVE_VERSION="$PACKAGE_VERSION"
 
-OCTAVE_COPYRIGHT="Copyright (C) 2013 John W. Eaton and others."
-
-OCTAVE_RELEASE_DATE="2014-02-26"
+OCTAVE_COPYRIGHT="Copyright (C) 2014 John W. Eaton and others."
+
+OCTAVE_RELEASE_DATE="2014-03-06"
 
 ## The "API version" is used as a way of checking that interfaces in the
 ## liboctave and libinterp libraries haven't changed in a backwardly