Online platform and former university battle over 'Hujiang' promotion

Shanghai’s leading online education platform Hujiang has been ordered by the Shanghai Higher People's Court to stop linking its name with the former Hujiang University, which was once iconic.

In April 2015, the Hujiang platform made a WeChat post saying, “Many years ago, Hujiang University's outstanding student Xu Zhimo, a well-known poet, studied at Cambridge. Now, the Hujiang platform cooperates with Cambridge to bring you good lessons.”

It alerted the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, which in 1952 merged with Hujiang University, built in 1906 by the American Baptist Missionary Union and the Southern Baptist Convention in Shanghai.

The university filed a lawsuit against the Hujiang platform, demanding it stop using the name of Hujiang and stop unfair competition.

According to the court, Hujiang University no longer exists, and the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology doesn't own the name as a registered trademark, meaning the platform didn't infringe on its rights.

However, the platform did use false information because it misled people into believing that there was some relation between the platform and the university, the court said.