Baidu Sues Qihoo 360 In China For Search Engine Sitemap Format Plagiarism

Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology Company Ltd. is claiming CNY500,000 in damages as it sues rival Beijing Qihoo Technology Company Ltd. for for allegedly plagiarizing the sitemap documentation content and format of the Zhanzhang.baidu.com platform.

Baidu said that its Zhanzhang webmaster support platform was formally launched on September 16, 2011. The Chinese search engine says that with the original and innovative Baidu Zhanzhang platform help documentation and Baidu sitemap tool help documentation, the company aimed to help third-party website operators create and submit statistics to Baidu’s Zhanzhang platform. Baidu claimed that the company owns the copyright to these two forms of documentation.

On January 24, 2013, Qihoo launched its 360 search website, on which the company allegedly plagiarized the contents and formats of Baidu Zhanzhang platform help documentation and Baidu sitemap tool help documentation, said Baidu.

The plaintiff says that Qihoo plagiarized its original documentation work and spread this content to the public via the Internet without permission or authorization. Baidu says this constituted copyright infringement. Due to the competitive relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, the infringement is claimed to have caused huge economic losses to the plaintiff. Therefore, the plaintiff has asked the defendant to stop the infringement, make a public apology, and pay compensation of CNY500,000.

The lawsuit has been accepted by Beijing Xicheng Court and is now waiting for a date for the proceedings to begin.

Prior to this, Baidu sued Qihoo 360 for unfair competition and trademark infringement, and it won the lawsuit. The case was closed by the First Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing, who asked Qihoo 360 to stop the unfair competition, publish an apology for 15 consecutive days on its front page, and pay compensation of CNY450,000.