A Chinese science fiction writer on Wednesday took US movie giant 20th Century Fox Film Corporation to court over allegations of copyright infringement, in the same week that the U.S. moved to file WTO cases against China over intellectual property rights.

The Intermediate People's Court of Dongying, in eastern China's Shandong province, began hearing the case at 8:30 AM Wednesday.

The writer, 43-year-old Li Jianmin, said that 20th Century Fox's movie The Day After Tomorrow copied the creative conception and the plots of two plays he completed in 2001 and 2002.

Li said The Day After Tomorrow, the blockbuster movie in which much of the world is destroyed by disasters caused by global warming, has 308 scenes that were described in his plays.

Li lodged the lawsuit against 20 Century Fox, director Roland Emmerich and five Chinese companies that imported, distributed and showed the movie at the Dongying court in March last year. The court accepted the suit last April.

(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2007)