BEIJING, Oct. 16 -- China's Supreme People's Court (SPC)rejected the appeal of Qihoo 360 on Tencent's market monopoly on Thursday, ending the two Chinese Internet giants' three-year legal fight.

The SPC maintained the original sentence that Tencent did not create a monopoly and all of Qihoo 360's appeals have been rejected, according to the SPC's final judgement.

Qihoo 360 was also ordered to pay 790,000 yuan (128,674 U.S. dollars) to Tencent in legal fees according to the first court decision made by the Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court in March last year.

The SPC said "current evidence is not sufficient to prove Tencent's dominance of the market," though it admitted the company has taken up more than 80 percent of the market shares both in the PC-based and mobile instant messaging service markets.

Tencent has more than 1 billion registered users for QQ, the most popular online chatting tool in China, while Qihoo 360, a leading anti-virus software provider, has over 300 million clients.

The legal battle started in October, 2011, when Qihoo 360 sued Tencent for hindering market competition and abusing its market position. It also asked for 150 million yuan in compensation from Tencent.

The trial lasted for nearly a year after the Guangdong provincial higher court began trials on April 18, 2012.