Just because a lot of Chinese companies don't respect intellectual property rights doesn't mean they don't want you respecting theirs - Chinese IT firm Founder Electronics Co. is suing Blizzard for copyright infringement. Claiming that "it lost more than one billion yuan (132 million dollars) through the unauthorized use of five of its fonts" in World of Warcraft, Founder is bringing suit in Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court against Blizzard, Chinese company The9 (who runs the game in China), and Qingwentuwen, the company who distributes WoW in Beijing.

Teddy Liu, Greater China communications director of Blizzard, told Xinhua on Thursday that he had not received any official information on the suit, and had only read media reports.

He said he could not comment at the moment.

Damages could be calculated either by the defendant's interests that were illegally gained via copyright infringement or by the plaintiff's losses according to Chinese law, said the statement from Founder Electronics.

It claimed WoW had 7.5 million active player accounts and hence the infringement of copyright was "serious".

"The lost earnings of one billion yuan was a conservative estimate," the statement said.

I'd love to know how they arrive at these numbers, and I'm curious to see what the outcome of the suit is - these 'conservative' totals for damages seem rather inflated at best, but then, I'm not a lawyer.

Chinese firm making "interim" damages claim for 100 mln yuan from Blizzard [Xinhua]