Kayak Accuses Bing of copying, Hakia also comes up with a similar one

Kayak, the travel search has accused Bing of copying. It was in an article that came on Wired that Kayak accused Bing Travel. The article is “Kayak to Bing: Stop Copying Us!”. The accusation is that the look and the feel of Bing travel are very much similar to that of Kayak. The executives of the company have also sent legal notice to Microsoft to cease & desist the act.

Kayak says that the company is disturbed by the high similarity between the two travel searches because it would cause brand confusion. The similarity comparison is given not only in their own review about Bing, but also at various other sources. The TechCrunch’s review also showed that Kayak and Bing used the same airline data sources. But the difference is that Bing provided with lower rates for flights.

Microsoft spokesperson Whitney Burk gave the following response to the accusation:

“We are discussing the matter with Kayak,” Burk said in emailed statement to Wired. “Bing Travel is based on independent development by Microsoft and Farecast.com, which Microsoft acquired in 2008. Any contrary allegations are without merit.”

This does not end the problem because Kayak is accusing Bing Travel for copying their user interface, and not the technology. “Sliders” used by Bing is an example for this.

Now Kayak is not alone in accusing Bing. Hakia also claims that Bing copied the looks of hakia galleries. The search about Obama was given as an example.

Melek Pulatkonak, CEO of Hakia told:

“We were approached by Microsoft to show them how the hakia galleries worked, and we did, and now they have a similar feature — we showed them how to do it,” she said. “We were surprised that it is a featured part of and the most differentiated part of Bing.”

Microsoft has denied this claim too.

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