(Yicai Global) June 11 -- Beijing Xue'ersi Education Technology (Xue'ersi Education) has filed a lawsuit against Beijing Jinghan Yingcai Education Technology and Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology, demanding the two immediately cease infringing its trademark, and compensate its damages and reasonable expenses of CNY300,000 (USD47,000), a Beijing court announced June 8.

The court in the high-tech Zhongguancun area in Beijing's Haidian district accepted the case a few days ago, per the announcement.

Xue'ersi Education is a subsidiary of New York-listed TAL Education Group, while Baidu Netcom is a unit of Baidu. Beijing Jinghan Yingcai Education Technology (Jinghan Yingcai) found and purchased the Xue'ersi trademark as a key word for its online advertising through Baidu's search engine.

Founded in 2005, Xue'ersi Education has plied the primary, secondary and early childhood education for more than 10 years and has become one of China's leading education technology companies, it said, adding that it has applied for the registration of a series of Xue'ersi trademarks (Learn & Think) in education, training, entertainment, cultural and sports services.

After investigation, Xue'ersi Education found that Jinghan Yingcai bought its registered trademark Xue'ersi as a key word for online advertising through Baidu's search engine. By entering the term in the Baidu search engine, links with the caption 'Choose Jinghan Yingcai as we are the professional Xue'ersi institution' popped up.

Xue'ersi Education alleges Jinghan Yingcai used its registered trademark in link titles and its web introduction without authorization and posted links via the Baidu search engine using the trademark as a key word to relate it to Xue'ersi Education.

This most likely to misled consumers into believing Jinghan Yingcai is associated with Xue'ersi Education and mistakenly clicking on it. Jinghan Yingcai's actions have objectively caused confusion and misunderstanding among the relevant public and damaged Xue'ersi Education's trademark rights and interests. Baidu, as a network service provider, did not fulfill its obligation to reasonably investigate and thus allowed Jinghan Yingcai's infringement to spread throughout its website, with these acts and omissions constituting a joint tort that has caused Xue'ersi Education to sustain losses, the filing claims.

Further adjudication of the case is pending.

Editor : Benedict Armour