A case brought by Kingsoft against Zhou Hongwei, chairman of Qihoo 360, alleging reputation infringement, opened on Monday in the Haidian District People's Court in Beijing.

Kingsoft alleges Zhou said in a MicroBlog that Kingsoft had given false testimony in a court case against Beijing-based Micropoint; that Kingsoft's anti-virus software, Web Shield, attacked 360's Security Guard software; and that Kingsoft's Vice President Ge Ke was frozen out of the company. Kingsoft claims the allegations caused a drop of 600 million HK dollars in its stock market value.

Kingsoft is demanding Zhou stop his attacks on its reputation, withdraw the offending remarks from his MicroBlog, and post public apologies in newspapers and on four major websites for seven successive days. They are also claiming 12 million yuan (US$1.81 million) in compensation and legal fees. Zhou did not show up in court yesterday. The court listened to several hours of testimony, but did not announce a decision.

China's business press carried the story above on Tuesday. China.org.cn has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

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