The Coral QQ infringement case has ended and Chen Shoufu, developer of Coral QQ, was punished with three years in prison for copyright infringement.
According to details provided by news in Sohu.com, in October 2007 Chen was arrested and Tencent sued him for infringing the copyright of its instant messaging product QQ. Chen had developed a competing product called Coral QQ and allowed it to be downloaded from Soff.net. In March 2008, Shenzhen Nanshan People's Court decided that Chen should be punished with three years in jail as well as a fine of CNY1.2 million and confiscation of his illegal income of CNY1.17 million.
Chen appealed the sentence after the decision was announced, and in August 2008 the final judgment was issued, maintaining the original decision. However, the result has not been announced to the public until now.
Although the operation of the website and forums of Soff.net has already been recovered and put back into nominal operation, the Coral QQ software as disappeared.
