Information Technology News
- Sohu launches new claim of rights violation against Google
Date: 11-Apr-2007 Sources: (Xinhua Online)
Chinese Internet service provider Sohu.com renewed its attack on U.S.-based rival Google on Tuesday with a new claim that Google had violated its intellectual property rights (IPR).
It is the latest accusation by Sohu against Google's Gu Ge input method editor (IME), a system that allows Internet users to type Chinese in pinyin spellings using the Roman alphabet which is then translated into Chinese characters.
Sohu, which launched the rival Sogou system in June last year, is claiming the rights to the concept of using its on-line search results in the IME database. Google in using its own on-line search results in the database for its own Gu Ge IME system had violated Sohu's rights to the idea, said a statement from Sohu.
The statement went on to demand that Google stop further infringement of its intellectual property rights by suspending free downloads of the Gu Ge system.
A spokeswoman for Google on Tuesday rebutted the accusation and demands by Sohu, saying that as early as 2004 three Chinese engineers of Google applied for a patent on enhancing a Chinese IME system with on-line search results.
She said Google would defend its rights and interests on 'providing new products and experiences for Chinese users'.
On Monday, Google apologized for 'leveraging some non-Google database resources' after elements of the Sogou vocabulary database appeared on Gu Ge.
Sohu said in the statement that it welcomed the apology, but threatened legal action if Google failed to meet its demands.
'We believe that Google not only copied the vocabulary database, but also infringed copyrights of Sogou IME,' the statement said.
Google has since upgraded Gu Ge, which was launched on April 4.
The developers of the Sogou IME, who were the first to protest, said they were amazed that their names, which were not common in Chinese, appeared in the vocabulary database of the Google IME.
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