A court in Beijing recently consented to moves taken by two local companies to trap two other firms who had infringed their copyright on software.
Beijing Beida Founder Group Company and Beijing Honglou Computer Science and Technology Institute suspected that Beijing Gaoshu Tianli Science and Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing Gaoshu Science and Technology Co., Ltd. might have infringed their copy right on some popular software.
They sent representatives together with notaries to find evidence from the two suspected companies by purchasing laser printers equipped with the software. Later, they sued the two offenders for the infringement.
The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court handled the case and decided that the law does not prohibit the method the two companies used to trap the defendants. The two offenders were ordered to pay more than one million yuan (120,000 U.S. dollars) for court fees and compensation for the infringement as well as repaying the money paid for purchasing the "evidence".
According to official figures, China suffers direct losses of over 40 billion yuan (4.8 billion U.S. dollars) in software copyright infringement, though the government has spared no efforts in cracking down on criminal activities.
( January 6, 2002)
