© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Men interact with a Baidu AI robot near the company’s logo at its headquarters in Beijing, China, April 23, 2021. REUTERS/Florence Lo
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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese search engine giant Baidu (NASDAQ:) has filed lawsuits against “relevant” app developers and Apple Inc (NASDAQ:) over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on Apple’s app store.
The company’s AI-powered Ernie bot, launched last month, has been touted as China’s closest answer to the US-developed ChatGPT chatbot.
Baidu said it had filed lawsuits in the Beijing Haidian People’s Court against the developers behind the counterfeit apps from its Ernie bot and the Apple company.
“Currently, Ernie does not have any official app,” Baidu said in a statement posted late Friday on its official “Baidu AI” WeChat account.
He also posted a photograph of his court filing.
“Until our company’s official announcement, any Ernie app you see on the App Store or other stores is fake,” he said.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Reuters search on Saturday found that there were still at least four apps with the Chinese name of the bot Ernie, all fake, still on Apple’s App Store.
The Ernie bot is only available to users who request and receive access codes. In his statement, Baidu also warned against people selling access codes.
