According to a filing with the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, which can be found in U.S. federal court records, Meishe’s review of TikTok’s source code has found that TikTok in fact copied Meishe’s source code, and the copying is extensive.

Beijing Meishe Network Co., Ltd. was founded in 2014. According to the company’s official website, the R&D team members have more than 20 years of experience in the development of video and audio products and own more than 70 patents in this area.

Launched in May 2017, TikTok is a social media platform for short videos that is owned by ByteDance. Since 2021, TikTok has surpassed Facebook to take the top spot for software downloads worldwide and Google to claim the title of most-visited website worldwide. Now, TikTok has over 1 billion DAU and approximately 66 million downloads.

In April 2021, Beijing Meishe Network Technology Co., Ltd. sued ByteDance Ltd. and several affiliated companies for infringement of software copyright and technical secrets in China. In May 2021, Beijing Meishe Network Technology Co., Ltd. filed a lawsuit against TikTok Inc., TikTok Pte. Ltd., ByteDance Ltd., And ByteDance Inc. in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas Waco Division.