A US firm is suing China for alleged piracy of internet filtering software, claiming that lines of code were copied for the controversial Green Dam censorship program.
Cybersitter, which produces software to help parents filter content for their children, filed a $2.2bn (£1.4bn) lawsuit in a federal court in Los Angeles yesterday. The company names the Chinese government, two Chinese software firms and seven computer makers in the suit.
Chinese officials said last year that the Green Dam Youth Escort program would be mandatory on all new computers in China, but backed away at the last minute after an outcry by internet users, foreign governments and businesses.
Beijing said it was targeting pornography and violence. But experts said the program denied access to politically sensitive material, collected private data from internet users and was highly vulnerable to security breaches.
A research team at the University of Michigan in the US reported at the time that Green Dam appeared to use blacklist files derived from Cybersitter, but soon afterwards said that an update appeared to have disabled the files.
Gregory Fayer, a lawyer representing the US firm, told Associated Press: "I don't think I have ever seen such clearcut stealing."
He alleged that Chinese software makers appeared to have copied more than 3,000 lines of code.
"They did a sloppy job," he added, noting that they included directions on how to get to the Cybersitter website.
The suit alleges misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, copyright infringement and conspiracy. It also claims the Chinese software makers broke US laws governing economic espionage.
Cybersitter is also suing manufacturers including Sony, Lenovo and Toshiba on the grounds that they distributed Green Dam with PCs sold in China. The other firms named are Acer, ASUSTeK, BenQ and Haier.
The Chinese government had ordered computer makers to include the software. Cybersitter's lawsuit alleges that manufacturers continued to distribute the program after learning of the piracy claims.
Fayer said that none of the defendants had been served with the lawsuit yet.
China's foreign ministry referred questions to the ministry of industry and information technology, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Lenovo Group spokeswoman told AP by email that the firm was unable to comment on pending litigation, adding that it had not shipped Green Dam with PCs for several months.
AP said spokespeople for Sony and Taiwan's BenQ said they had no details of the lawsuit and could not comment. Taiwan's Acer and China's Haier Group declined to comment, while Toshiba and Taiwan's ASUSTeK Computer did not respond to queries.
But the Financial Times quoted ASUSTeK as saying the program came from a mainland Chinese company and that they were trying to resolve the issue legally.
The chief executive of one of the Chinese software makers being sued, Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering, did not answer phone calls. The firm has previously denied any wrongdoing. A representative of the other software maker named in the lawsuit, Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy, was not available when AP called.
Fayer said Cybersitter was seeking damages for royalties due on its product, which sold for $39.95 a copy. He said the case could be "a watershed for the protection of American intellectual property internationally.
"We don't make many widgets anymore," he said. "What we have to offer the world is our ingenuity and creativity, our ideas and what lawyers call intellectual property … It is important that they be protected."