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SK game developer wins game infringement case with 5 million yuan compensation from Chinese companies

By Ke Jiayun | April 28, 2016, Thursday | Online Edition

A South Korean video game developer's only agent in China, which is based in Shanghai, won a more than 5 million yuan (US$770,310) compensation from two Guangzhou-based online game operators after their game used very similar story structure, characters and scenes to the South Korean game MU Online, the Pudong New Area People's Court said yesterday.

This amount was reported as the state's highest on compensation related to online games, the court said. The two companies were also ordered to make a declaration on China Intellectual Property News.

According to the court, Shanghai Zhaouc Information & Technology Co became the South Korean game giant Webzen Inc's only designated agent in China in 2012. However, two years later, Zhaouc found another online game Qijishenhua used similar logo, story structure and scenes to MU Online, whose Chinese name Zhaouc uses is QijiMU.

Zhaouc then brought a lawsuit to the court against the involved game's developer and operator, Guangzhou Hugenstar Information Technology Co and Guangzhou Weedong Network Technology Co. Despite the similarity on the two's story structure and scenes, Zhaouc also claimed that the two companies used MU Online's logo and similar slogan during their promotion, which it considered as false advertising.

But Hugenstar defended that it thought the game scenes was not a work covered by the Copyright Law and the involved scenes are only a very small part of the whole game. And since the two games are both of fantasy, so it's reasonable that part of their slogans sound similar.

Weedong said it never use "MU" or "MU Online" in the promotion and it has nothing to do with false advertising.

After the court compared the two games, judges found Qijishenhua's basic scenes are similar to MU Online and saw it as an infringement. Because MU Online is a renowned and popular game which was created much earlier than Qijishenhua, the two defendants' developing and running a similar game infringed the plaintiff's right of reproduction and spreading through network. And since the two Chinese characters "Qiji" are the major part for Chinese to identify, so the two companies' using a similar name and pattern in promotion could be considered as false advertising.

The court set a high amount of compensation because MU Online bears a very high commercial value and reputation and the two defendants obtained huge profit from running their game, which copied lots of MU scenes. Even after the plaintiff filed a suit, the two still opened new service areas in their games, which expanded the infringement's effect.

 

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