BEIJING -- A Chinese IT company is suing Google's China unit for IPR infringement for adopting the identical Chinese name of "guge", which they claim to have prior use of and have requested that Google change. The case was heard by a local Beijing court began hearing the case this week.

The Chinese company, called Beijing Guge Sci-Tech Company, was officially registered with Beijing's Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau in April 19, 2006. Google set up its Chinese branch on November 24 last year.

Google’s defence was that Beijing Guge Sci-tech Company, had primarily registered the name in bad faith, the Beijing News reported, following widespread local media reports of Google’s decision to release its Chinese name “Guge” on April 12, 2006 – four days before Beijing Guge registered its name.

Thereafter the issue gets complicated. Google’s attorney said the name “guge”, which is not a fixed phrase in the Chinese dictionary, was given special meaning by them. In Chinese, “gu” means valley, while “ge” means song. Google China claims that they interpret these two words as songs from Silicon Valley, where Google's headquarters are located.

However, Beijing Guge Sci-Tech Company said they had chosen different means of the phrase – one that “gu” represents a cuckoo singing in spring, the other is that “gu” when translated into English means grain, which personifies singing during the harvest season in autumn. The court has yet to decide on which version to believe.

© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bookmark with..

Comments (0)

Write comment

This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.

There is a problem with the comment system, or you do not have javascript enabled.