On The Competition Relationship In The Anti-unfair Competition Law

In general unfair competition cases,the defendants always come up with an idea that there is no competitive relation between parties as the counterargument.But the idea that competitive relation is one of the conditions for the identification of unfair competition has been debated.It is the traditional view that competitive relation is the requirement of the unfair competition.However,whether old Law of the PRC against Unfair Competition or new Law of the PRC against Unfair Competition,there is no specific term to defining competitive relation.Therefore,some scholars think that there is no need to debating over the competitive relation except the chapter 2 article 14 of Law of the PRC against Unfair Competition.However,the legal council of standing committee of the National People’s Congress has published the Paraphrase of Law of the PRC against Unfair Competition,which makes it clear that the acts of harming the rights and interests of consumers are not regarded as unfair competition if it does not involve competition relation.And now there are two theories of competitive relation in academia and practice:one is narrow sense of competitive relation,another is broad sense of competitive relation.In traditional view,the competitive relation means narrow sense of competitive relation,requiring parties are in the same industry.Then with developing of economic,there are more unfair competition cases happening between parties who are not in the same industry.So the broad sense of competitive relation is developing and growing.The broad sense of competitive relation does not require parties are in the same industry.The author refers to some relevant cases,theories and the Paraphrase of Law of the PRC against Unfair Competition coming up with an idea that competitive relation is the condition for applying Law of the PRC against Unfair Competition.In the other hand,there is an accordant purpose between narrow sense and broad sense of competitive relation.And at the end,the author abstracts the connotation of competitive relation which is the gist of unfair competition cases from theories.