Comparative Advertising And Its Legal Regulation

China's market economy is more prosperous than ever. The time of lack of goods has gone forever. Now the consumers don't know what to buy facing so many kinds of goods in market. Advertising gradually becomes an important means for businessmen to own market and consumers to get information. Among many means of advertising, advertising designers and advertising owners would like to adopt comparative advertising which is direct and clear to transport information. But anything has two sides, the positive side and the negative side. Comparative advertising involves a competitor. It is very easy to harm others' interest and mislead consumers. Comparative advertising is used widely as a means of advertising in America and Europe, but it is still forbidden in China because of traditional idea of modesty and lack of theory. With the change of age and the deepening of reform, comparative advertising should be allowed in advertising activities.The paper aims to give some advice of making China' comparative advertising law perfect based on developed countries' comparative advertising law. This paper consists of five parts and conclusion: Part Ⅰ: A Summary Of Comparative Advertising In this part, the author tries to define comparative advertising accurately by analyzing the definition of comparative advertising of America and Europe. And then he classifies comparative advertising by three ordinary methods into: directly comparative advertising and indirectly comparative advertising; dependently comparative advertising and critically comparative advertising; objectively comparative advertising and subjectively comparative advertising. In the end, the author introduces some comparative advertising law of America and Europe.Part Ⅱ: An Analysis of Lawful Comparative Advertising This part focuses on introducing several theories about lawful comparative advertising. A kind of theory thinks comparativeadvertising must be forbidden for it may harm other competitor's interest and disrupt the order of socialist market economy. The second kind of theory thinks comparative advertising should be allowed for if will give consumers more information about consuming. Another kind of theory thinks comparative advertising should be allowed but it must be regulated strictly. The author thinks a lawful comparative advertising should abide by four basic principal include honesty, fairness, truth and comparing properly. Part III: Legal Control of Comparative Advertising This part first discusses the supervisory system of comparative advertising. It mainly includes three kinds of supervisions: the supervision of advertising association, administrative supervision and judicial supervision. And then the author discusses how to tell and punish an unlawful comparative advertising. An unlawful comparative advertising should bear the appropriate legal responsibility.Part IV: Comparative Advertising and Several Related Acts This part focuses on interpreting the relation and difference of comparative advertising and several related acts. Comparative advertising, false advertising and defamation of commercial goodwill are very easy to be confused, so the author tries to make clear the difference among them.Part V: Current Comparative Advertising Law In Our Country and How To Make It PerfectThe value of comparative advertising law is denied in China. The author thinks our legal system about comparative advertising has many defects and we should revise advertising law to add contents on comparative advertising. In the end he tries to let our legislative body put emphasis on comparative advertising and male it perfect. Conclusion: This part summarizes the whole paper.