The newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition law expands from 33 articles to 41 articles, including General Provisions, Unfair Competition Acts, Investigations of Suspected Unfair Competition, Legal Liability and Supplementary Provisions.
In the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, the regulations regarding confusing behaviors and online unfair competition behaviors are mentioned as follows..
〇 Regulations of unfair competition related to confusing behaviors
(1) Define the unauthorized use of "social media account names, app names, or icons with a certain level of influence" as a confusing behavior.
(2) Improve the connection with the Trademark Law, by making it clear that the unauthorized use of another party's registered trademark or an unregistered well-known trademark as part of a business name or trademark name, leading consumers to mistakenly believe that the product comes from another party or that there is a specific connection with another party, constitutes a confusing behavior;
(3) Regulate the use of search keywords, by specifying that setting another party's product name, business name (including abbreviations, trade names, etc.), registered trademark, or unregistered well-known trademark as search keywords, leading consumers to mistakenly believe the product come from another party or that there is a specific connection with another party, constitutes a confusing behavior.
(4) Business operators are prohibited from assisting others in carrying out acts of confusion.
〇 Regulations on unfair competition in the online environment.
(1) Clearly stipulate that operators must not engage in unfair competition by using data, algorithms, technologies, or platform rules.
(2) Add provisions on the infringement of rights and interests in data, specifying that operators must not obtain or use data lawfully held by other operators through improper means such as fraud, coercion, circumventing or sabotaging technical management measures, in ways that harm the legitimate rights and interests of other operators or disrupt market competition order.
(3) Clearly stipulate that operators must not abuse platform rules to directly engage in, or instruct others to engage in, acts such as fake transactions, false reviews, or malicious returns against other operators.
(4) Add provisions requiring platform operators to address unfair competition conducted by operators within the platform. Platform operators shall specify fair competition rules within their platform service agreements and transaction rules, establish mechanisms for reporting, complaint handling, and dispute resolution related to unfair competition, and guide and regulate platform operators to compete fairly and in accordance with the law.
(5) Upon discovering unfair competition behavior by operators within the platform, platform operators shall promptly take necessary measures in accordance with the law, keep relevant records, and report to the supervisory and inspection department of the people's government at or above the county level where the platform operator is domiciled, as required.