The infringement case of the 360 Webmaster Platform was heard in the first instance at the Xicheng District Court of Beijing this morning. Baidu believes that 360 copied the original document works of the Baidu Webmaster Platform and disseminated them to the public through an information network without permission or authorization, thus taking it to court. Baidu demands that 360 completely stop its infringing activities, apologize, and compensate for economic losses amounting to 500,000 yuan.
On January 24th, the "360 Webmaster Platform" under the 360 Search website officially launched, with the "sitemap submission document" under its webmaster platform section massively plagiarizing the corresponding document content and format of the "Baidu Webmaster Platform Help" and "Baidu Sitemap Tool Help" that had been online since September 2011; additionally, when registered users submitted sitemap data to the "360 Webmaster Platform," the submission process and interface text and format displayed on the webpage were entirely identical to those shown on the "Baidu Webmaster Platform."
Due to the existence of same-industry competition between Baidu and 360 Search, 360's plagiarism and infringement clearly violated relevant intellectual property law provisions. In February 2013, Baidu filed a lawsuit against Qihoo 360, and under pressure, 360 subsequently modified and deleted related documents suspected of plagiarism, indirectly acknowledging the fact of plagiarism and infringement.
According to Baidu, the act of 360 plagiarizing various types of web page data from Baidu is not a singular occurrence. When 360 Search went online, its page design and search results were shockingly similar to Baidu's. The newly launched 360 Answers by 360 has also been pointed out by netizens as containing a large number of instances similar to Baidu Zhidao.
From 2010 until now, due to various infringements and unfair competition, 360 has suffered twelve consecutive legal defeats, and currently, there are still multiple cases that have been accepted or are under trial.