Sohu finding issues with Google’s Pinyin Input Method Editor

Search engine giant Google recently launched a new software product named Pinyin Input Method Editor. This software enables the user to enter Chinese characters by typing their Pinyin equivalents on a standard QWERTY keyboard.

After getting this input, the software draws on a dictionary of words and names to anticipate which characters the user may be looking for, and proposes possible matches.

Incidentally, users of this application have reported that the software features many similarities between the dictionary used with Google’s IME and a popular offering from Sohu’s Sogou search engine.

Sogou’s own IME software and dictionary uses information from their own database of popular search terms to suggest names and words. And Sohu has apparently patented technologies related to how popular Internet search terms can be used for predictive text input.

Google software’s similarities to their own could now open the door to a patent-infringement case. Neither Sohu nor Google has yet commented on these reports in the media.