The international Dow Jones & Co group, a cross-national media and information provider based in the United States, is being sued by Chinese calligrapher Guan Dongsheng for allegedly violating copyright.

The Beijing No 1 High People's Court is due to hold a special session tomorrow to hear the case, where the calligrapher is asking for compensation of 5 million yuan (US$602,400) for alleged economic and spiritual losses.

Sources with Dow Jones allegedly said the company had used Guan's calligraphy as a logo, the Beijing Youth Daily claimed yesterday. But the company allegedly said there was no evidence to prove Dow Jones had violated the calligrapher's copyright.

Guan, 53, a professor with Central University of Nationalities, claimed: "In February 2002, I was astonished to find that, without my permission, Dow Jones had widely used part of one of my calligraphy works as a business logo on its websites, books and advertisements."

The calligraphy work with a Chinese character tao, which means virtue in Chinese, was presented to Peter Kann, chairman and chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Co, as a gift in 1994, Guan alleged.

In English, the word "Dow" has a similar pronunciation to that of the Chinese character tao.

Like all of his other Chinese calligraphy works, Guan added a few words as an inscription and affixed his seal to the work, he alleges. "Dow Jones has violated my copyright by using the tao as a business logo and omitted the inscription and seal of the original calligraphy," Guan claimed.

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