It is a bit ironic that Microsoft is being accused of copyright infringement in China considering how much of their software is pirated in that country, however by looking at the below screenshots it is pretty obvious some copyright infringement of some kind is at play here:

Less than a month after Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) launched a microblogging service in China, the company has pulled the product off the market, among rampant accusations that it had blatantly copied a competitor’s own microblogging service. In a statement issued late last night, Microsoft said, “Because questions have been raised about the code base comprising the service, MSN China will be suspending access to the Juku beta feature temporarily while we investigate the matter fully.”

Juku, which we covered when it went on the market, let users write up to 140-character messages which showed up on a page along with similar messages from Windows Live Messenger contacts. A competitor, Plurk, pointed out that Juku’s code and appearance had a very striking resemblance to its own (See screenshots below). In a blog post, it said it was “in shock asking why Microsoft would even stoop to this level of wilfully plagiarising a young and innovative upstart’s work rather than reach out to us or innovate on their own terms.”  [PaidContent.org]

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