The answer to the question above would appear to be yes, unless there's a whole lot more to this story than meets the eye. Plurk Labs, operator of the top microblogging service in Asia, went public today with some detailed evidence suggesting that Microsoft Asia's newly launched social networking service took more than a few design cues -- and quite a bit of underlying code -- from the Plurk service.

See the screen shots in the Plurk post to get a sense for the similarities in design. In addition, Plurk cites examples of duplicate code and says about 80 percent of the codebase appears to have been stolen.

"Plurk was never approached nor collaborated in any capacity with MS on this service," the company says. "As a young startup, we’re stunned, shocked, and unsure what to do next and need your support and suggestions."

CNet News quotes a Microsoft spokesman saying that the company is looking into the situation. "Microsoft takes intellectual property seriously, and we are currently investigating these allegations," spokesman Mark Murray told the site in a statement.

Follow-up: Microsoft takes down MSN 'Juku' amid allegations of code theft