The Supreme People's Court of China released the latest judicial interpretation that in accordance with the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, making detailed provisions on counterfeiting and confusion, false promotion, and online unfair competition.

The Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Interpretation) issued on March 17th, a total of 29 articles, which will come into force on March 20, 2022.

In 2021, Chinese courts concluded 8,654 cases of unfair competition disputes, of which the cases of counterfeiting and confusion account for a large proportion. It is known that the ‘Interpretation’ details the provision of ‘counterfeiting and confusion’ in the Anti-Unfair Competition Law with 11 clauses, for example, ‘marks that are prohibited by the Trademark Law cannot be protected by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law’.

Disputes over Internet unfair competition have increased day by day, and the ‘Interpretation’ has also made deployment. The person in charge of the Third Trial Division of the Supreme People’s Court said that, considering the characteristics of rapid updating and development of technology and business models in the Internet industry, the “Interpretation” timely summarized juridical practice experience, properly detailed application conditions for law, providing necessary regulations guideline for juridical adjudication as well as setting aside space for self-regulation and technical innovation of market.

Since the implementation of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, the general clauses (Article 2) have become one of the main legal grounds for Chinese courts to identify new types of unfair competition acts. However, inconsistence of judgment standards occasionally happens.

For this, the ‘Interpretation’ clarifies the applicable relationship between general clauses, clauses of specific acts, and provisions of special intellectual property laws, and also identifies the application status of general clauses to other special intellectual property laws such as the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and Trademark Law.

From CHINANEWS

March 17th, 2022