Legal Regulation Of Unfair Comparative Advertising

The developed market economy makes advertising boom, in return, the prosperity of theadvertising industry is driving the rapid development of the market economy. Just as whatFrance advertising critic Robert Lalan said:"the air we breathe, is made up of oxygen,nitrogen and advertising". As to that we can see how important advertising is in our lives.Among the various forms of advertising, comparative advertising shows its superiority,whichis colorful and active in this arena in the information age. From the point of view of marketeconomy, comparative advertising has promoted industry competition and protectedconsumers ’ rights. However, some ads are a red herring, undermining fair competition in thesocial order, violating the legitimate rights and interests of other operators and consumers. Itwas vividly described that the comparative advertising is "armed with chains of dance" and"dancing on the edge of a precipice". In short, there are both the advantages anddisadvantages of comparative advertising, it is a urgent problem for our legislature to takeadvantage of comparative advertising,and promote fair comparative advertising regulation.This article is divided into five parts, the contents are summarized as follows:Part Ⅰ: in this section, a typical litigation of comparative ad "Blue Moon Procter andunfair competition litigation" is given as an example, and clear overview of this lawsuit caselawsuits follows, whose focus is whether "New Tide" detergent effect is objectively true andwhether Procter advertising is downgrading the "Blue Moon" collar clear reputation.Part Ⅱ: in this section, taking "Blue Moon Procter and unfair competition litigation" asthe logical basis, the author makes a reference for the rest of the world to define advertisingand unfair comparative advertising and furthers the distinction from four aspects.Part Ⅲ: in this section, the author classified unfair comparative advertising asmisleading,the commercial acts of slander and other unlawful method from the perspective ofunfair comparative advertising extension, and make a detailed analysis of the forms andcriterion for their behavior and so on.Ⅳ part: in this section, as the above and some related to legislative practice ofcomparative ad,I can come to an conclusion that Procter and company behavior constitutingon blue moon company does not due competition and "new jigs stains" washing powder effect does not real and the advertising has degraded Blue Moon’s reputation.Part five: in this section, I start from different situations of legal status of legislation tonote gaps in the legislation of China’s comparative advertising and propose some observationsand recommendations on how to perfect China’s legislation of comparative advertising.