Sinopharm lodged a copyright appeal against the Beijing subsidiary of US Getty Images with Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court, after a ruling was made in favor of the picture provider. Getty Images claimed that Sinopharm used three pictures for commercial use on its microblog without authorization. The pharmaceutical group said that forwarding content containing the pictures in issues edited by news portals should not be defined as infringement. The appeal was heard in early April, pending further investigation for decision.