A smaller travel search site has complained that the travel section of Microsoft’s Bing appears to be influenced by its own design. Kayak.com has not yet gone to court, but has sent the firm a legal letter.

Kayak hasn’t yet publicly accused Microsoft of a wholesale ripoff, but told Wired.com, “From the look and feel of their travel product, they seem to agree with our approach to the market.”

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

Much of the look of Bing’s travel section appears to be taken from Farecast, a site it bought in May 2008, though the data side of the site is more from Microsoft’s own MSN travel.

As these screenshots show, there is certainly a visual similarity between the two sites:

Whether that’s close enough to constitute copyright infringement is another matter. It may be tough to say Microsoft has ripped off the general layout of the three columns (narrow options list, wide results, narrow ads list), simply because its such a simple and effective way to arrange a page that two firms could easily decide on it independently.

The similarities in the color scheme are also striking, though to be fair to Microsoft the pale blue backdrops for selected boxes is a style that’s used throughout all of Bing, not just the travel site.

The feature which would probably attract the most attention if the dispute wound up in court is the slider bars used for adjusting the time window in which you are prepared to travel. IT consultant Douglas Simms, who wrote about the similarities earlier this month, notes that both sites even use the same programming system, Ajax, to produce this effect.

Of course, in any legal case which involves subjectivity, there’s going to be an argument. And when it comes to an argument, the side which can afford the best lawyers often wins.

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Entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 3:14 pm under Legal, Microsoft.

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