The Relationship Between Intellectual Property Law And Anti-unfair Competition Law

Intellectual Property originated from privilege granted by European feudal rulers in15th century, this privilege made those privileged people monopoly relating commoditymarket, free competition was curbed. As this feudal privilege was abolished,intellectualproperty evolved to private right. But still as a policy which adjust market competition, thepurpose of intellectual property is promoting public interests, its essence remains aprivilege. The violation constitutes infringement and unfair competition. Marketcompetition permits imitation, but no imitation is the key to protect intellectual property.Settling this problem need to control the degree of limitation.The invasion of intellectualproperty is actually an unfair competition, but exclusive rights are granted to make obligeeget a legal arm to resist this invasion. Since the intangibility and uncertain boundary ofintellectual property, new exclusive rights would be unlikely granted by different countries.Anti-unfair competition is used to enlarge the protection of intellectual property since italso prohibits imitation. The so-called principle of anti-unfair competition law doesn’tmean it provides a catch-all protection, instead it describes the essence of imitationprohibited by anti-unfair competition. Providing protection for interested party, intellectualproperty aims at inspiring investment of knowledge creation, and this inspiration is limitedby the aim of public policy. Intellectual property never aims at proving a total protection,which conflicts with its public policy. Anti-unfair competition just enlarges the protection,as to what extent depends on public policy purpose.