China's leading travel website Ctrip.com (CTRP) has won an infringement lawsuit against a Beijing-based travel search engine Qunar.com, and according to the decision of Haidian People's Court of Beijing, Qunar.com should stop its infringement activities within ten days, pay relevant notarization fees of CNY1,000 to Ctrip.com and make an apology lasting for 24 hours on the front page of its website.
In April 2008, Ctrip.com found that Qunar.com was copying commented articles from Ctrip.com in its hotel area. Ctrip.com said that it had been encouraging its members to publish comments on hotels and these comments were arranged by Ctrip.com, which cost a lot of time and energy. These comments had become the important reference and standards for members' booking of hotels and were precious information resources of Ctrip.com.
After finding the copyright infringement of Qunar.com, Ctrip.com sent legal letters to the website on June 19, July 4 and July 11, 2008, asking the website to stop its infringement activities. However, Qunar.com only made some adjustments on its copied contents and did not make any rectification to its illegal scraping of the data.
Therefore, Ctrip.com sued Qunar.com for illegally stealing its hotel comments. The case was heard by Haidian People's Court of Beijing on November 12, 2008, and the court recently announced its decision that Qunar.com's activity has constituted an infringing behavior and Qunar.com should make an apology posted for 24 hours on the front page of its website and pay the relevant notarization fees and litigation costs.