The Chinese web firm Cubic Network is suing Facebook as it claims that the timeline feature is in fact a breach of Xiong Wanli’s copyright. It is believed that ‘friendly’ US lawyers have advised Xiong to file a case.
In 2011, Facebook introduced the Timeline feature allowing members to display their photos, comments and messages in chronological order on their ‘homepage.’ Cubic networks claim that they had the idea three years before, in 2008.
The allegations do not end there. Xiong is believed to have claimed that the logo of Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference is also a mimic of their own logo.
The Chinese seem intent on suing. Only recently, they tried to sue Apple over coining the name ‘iPad’.
The public is not the only group to question the Xiong and the Cubic Network’s actions. It is curious why the Chinese are only raising the case now. Perhaps Cubic Network is hoping that the giant social networking monster will come down and will provide a hole in the market for a website of their own to be the new dominator.
If you have a copyright idea (and it is genuinely original, or sufficiently different from a base work as to have its own copyright), then you should create an audit trail showing you are the original creator of the work. If you are in any doubt as to how to do this, we can help you work out what would constitute an original work and what might be deemed to be a copy.
© Brian Miller, Solicitor, 2012. This article may not be reproduced without the prior written permission of the author.
Brian is a solicitor at Stone King LLP. For further news and information on legal topics of interest, please visit Brian’s other blogs:
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