Two Websites Go to Court

A quite popular local website in Shanghai with the Chinese name "Dongfang Wang (Oriental Net)" recently filed a lawsuit against another website with the same Chinese name, but headquartered in north China's Shandong province, for unfair competition.

The plaintiff, jointly sponsored by several local media and information technology companies launching a website called "eastday.com" on May 28 this year, accused the Shandong company of opening the website "eastdays.com" shortly after and copying its content, style, pattern from "eastday.com."

The defendant also carried an advertisement in its website claiming the Chinese name of "Oriental Net" and claiming itself to be one of the largest media and information servers, with which it tries to incur advertisement, accused the plaintiff, who demanded the immediate cancellation of the "eastdays.com" website and compensation of a million yuan.

However, the defendant said that the plaintiff is not entitled to any legitimate right to the website, because the plaintiff has never registered the Chinese name of "Oriental Net."

A company from Beijing registered the Chinese website name, while the Shanghai-based Jiefang Daily registered the English name of "eastday.com," it argued.



People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/