IP Rights Violation in China Expands into the Wireless Value-added Services Space

IP Rights Violation in China Expands into the Wireless Value-added Services Space

August 13, 2007

Leading Chinese Mobile Search Provider mInfo Discovers
Copycat Service from Former Coop Partner

    SHANGHAI, China, Aug. 13 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ --
mInfo(R) Inc. ( http://www.minfo.com ), the leading Chinese
mobile search provider, recently discovered that its popular
Guanxi(TM) Mobile City Guide is being copied by a former
business partner.  When people think of Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR) violations in China, they usually
think of music, movies, software or branded apparel.  One
Beijing wireless service provider is taking this practice
to the wireless value-added services space.  
    "mInfo's Guanxi Mobile City Guide is the most
popular expat-focused mobile search service in China, and
has been providing instant answers to SMS queries since
2002.  mInfo had acquired the service from Mailman Media
Group earlier this year," said Alvin Wang Graylin,
CEO, mInfo Inc. "Recently, we had discovered that a
former business partner, Beijing Taiyu Co., where Guanxi's
servers were stored, had started offering a similar service
under a similar name and SMS short-code."  
    "After investigating the service, we found that
the 'new' Taiyu service delivered exactly the same answers
to search queries as an older version of Guanxi and the
user experience behaved exactly the same as well, except it
required users to add a '2' in front of all their
queries," said Kirk Jobsz, CEO, Mailman Media Group.
"What made us even more suspicious of the issue was
that even some unique queries, i.e. personal friends'
names, came back with the customized messages that only
Guanxi's database would have."
    mInfo has delivered formal complaints to Taiyu to stop
operating their 'new' service, but have not been able to
get a satisfactory response.  In fact, Taiyu has even
actively pushed out unsolicited SMS messages to our users
saying they are a "better Guanxi."  Given this
kind of blatant disregard for IPR and violation of our
cooperation agreement, mInfo and Mailman China have no
choice but to issue formal legal proceedings towards the
Taiyu company.  We are confident that justice will prevail
in this case, and it will be a great test of the maturity
of the IP rights enforcement strength of the China legal
system.
    "We wanted to remind our users that Guanxi's true
number is 95882929, all other numbers are false.  Please
only use the real Guanxi search service, which will provide
you the most relevant and up to date results," said
Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO, mInfo Inc. "The real Guanxi
service also provides the proper user experience our loyal
users have grown to expect, which doesn't require entering
any special commands or prefixes in the queries.  Please
tell your friends the 'real' Guanxi number and don't settle
for any imitations."

    About mInfo Inc.
    mInfo(R) Inc. is the leading provider of mobile search
services to China's 450 million wireless subscribers and a
leading mobile advertising platform for branded and SME
advertisers throughout China.  mInfo Inc. operates both the
mInfo(R) and Guanxi(TM) brands of search services. mInfo
delivers instant answers on over dozens of types of life
oriented search categories, and its services are available
nationwide on all four major mobile carriers in China via
SMS, WAP, IM, and embedded clients.  mInfo's mobile search
services are based on numerous patent-pending technologies
making its services truly intuitive to use and its search
results highly relevant.  mInfo was founded in early 2005
and headquartered in Shanghai, with offices in Beijing,
Guangzhou and Chengdu.  For more information on mInfo,
please visit http://www.minfo.com . 


    For more information, please contact:
 
     Yu Shi
     mInfo
     Tel:   [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]