BEIJING, July 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU ) applauds the decision today by the Beijing Haidian District People's Court (or “the Court”) to accept Baidu’s enforcement application, requiring Sogou to comply with the outcome and compensation terms of the Court’s judgment in favor of Baidu in the long-standing traffic hijacking dispute. Baidu submitted the enforcement application in response to Sogou’s failure to meet its compensation obligations as outlined in the final judgment of the case in May 2018.

Baidu commenced the case against Sogou in 2014 after some users discovered that when using the Sogou input method to search for text in the Baidu search box, they would see prompts in a drop-down box, that if clicked upon, would automatically direct them to the relevant search results page of Sogou. Baidu believes that Sogou’s behavior went against the principle of fair competition. It interfered with user experience and infringed upon the rights and interests of Baidu.

In 2015, the Beijing Haidian District People's Court in their first-instance judgment agreed that Sogou’s traffic hijacking had constituted unfair competition and ordered Sogou to immediately stop the traffic hijacking, publicly apologize on their official website, and compensate Baidu for financial losses of 500,000 yuan. Sogou refused to accept the judgment and made an appeal.

On May 25, 2018, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court made their final judgment which dismissed Sogou’s appeal and upheld the first-instance judgment, which ruled in favor of Baidu. Despite almost a month and a half passing since the final judgment, Sogou has refused to honor the judgment terms and issue an apology. Baidu, therefore, submitted an enforcement application to the Court, which was accepted by the Court in early July.

About Baidu Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. Baidu aims to make a complex world simpler through technology. Baidu's ADSs trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU". Currently, ten ADSs represent one Class A ordinary share.

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