| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 法學系 === 92 === The excessive application of article 24 of the Fair Trade Law by the Fair Trade Commission has roused widespread controversies among the public. This essay attempts to provide the direction of application by referring to relative foreign laws. However, this essay stands on the perspective of comparative law methodology, since only limited countries hold a general provision on antitrust law; therefore, this essay is restricted to the scope of the application of article 24 of the Fair Trade Law about unfair competition.
This essay depicts the core content of the unfair competition law, starting from the keynote of unfair competition law, using the Model Provisions On Protection Against Unfair Competition Law made by WIPO in 1996 as the core, taking reference from related regulations and general provision in United States, Germany, and Japan, and concluding the essay by comparing with the related regulations of the unfair competition law in Fair Trade Law of our country. By observing the categories of the regulations developed in respective countries for nearly a hundred years, the applicability of our Fair Trade Law that legislated for only over a decade should not go beyond those categories. Whether we should intervene in the categories not identified even in other countries with 24th rule, however, remain to be discussed.
On the comparison of the typical legally named categories of unfair competition law with our country and others, the categories consist with each other generally. Yet the stipulation and the application of the legally named categories of our Fair Trade Law are too narrow to cover all unfair competition acts. Hence, the legally named categories still require the supplement by the general provision. As to unnamed categories on our Fair Trade Law, the general provision is also required. In general, this essay tries to probe the protection boundaries of competitors, consumers and the order of competitions by observing the aims of protection and the interests protected, and exploring the influences which acts imposed on competitors, consumers and the system of free competition. Furthermore, the author tries to shed light on the relations of civil law, consumer protection law and the intellectual property law with unfair competition law by the functional nature of the latter.
In practice, the Commission mostly highlights the deceptive or obviously unfair conduct identification as dealing with cases but overlooks the prerequisite that the applicability actually depends on a specific conduct” that is sufficient to affect trading order”. Even so, it still lacks the holistic thinking over the examination process. Moreover, such kind of identification would not allow people to distinguish the line between the Fair Trade Law and the civil law but accordingly turn the Fair Trade Law into personal aid tools. It is suggested that Fair Trade Commission, while thinking of the applicability, may further take the necessity of interference and the functionality of regulation into consideration, to avoid wasting precious administrative resources, and to benefit the consequence of the law enforcement.
|
|---|
