The following will describe in detail the legal regulation of "malicious complaints" in the field of e-commerce, and analyze the responsibilities and obligations of e-commerce third-party platforms in the complaint process.
I. Regulation of "Malicious Complaints" by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law
The means behind "malicious complaint", such as malicious registration of another person's trademark, can be directly regulated by the Trademark Law. For example, Article 32 of the Trademark Law stipulates: "The application for trademark registration shall not damage the prior rights of others, nor shall it preempt the registration of trademarks that others have used and have certain influence by unfair means."
The Trademark Law doesn't make relevant provisions on "malicious complaint" in the field of e-commerce, so "malicious complaint" itself can't be regulated by the Trademark Law. The relationship between the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and the Intellectual Property Law is not reciprocal and can't replace each other. Instead, they cooperate and complement each other and jointly play their legal functions.
Therefore, anti-unfair competition law, as a supplement to intellectual property law, can regulate "malicious complaints" in the field of e-commerce.
1. Malicious complaints in the field of e-commerce can be regulated by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
In a specific case, the court can apply Article 2 of People's Republic of China (PRC) Anti-Unfair Competition Law to adjust unfair competition behaviors that are not listed in Chapter 2 of People's Republic of China (PRC) Anti-Unfair Competition Law but violate the principle of good faith and recognized business ethics, so as to ensure fair competition in the market.
Paragraph 2 of Article 2 of China's current Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates that the term "unfair competition" as mentioned in this Law refers to the acts of business operators that violate the provisions of this Law, damage other legitimate rights and interests of other business operators and disrupt social and economic order. Therefore, when judging whether an act constitutes unfair competition, we can mainly analyze it from the following aspects:
Whether the subject of unfair competition is the subject of market competition; Whether unfair competition violates the principle of good faith and recognized business ethics; Whether the unfair competitors are subjectively at fault; Whether unfair competition harms the interests of honest competitors. When the "malicious complaint" behavior in the field of e-commerce meets these four constitutive requirements, it constitutes unfair competition and is regulated by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
Second, the "Criminal Law" regulation of "malicious complaints"
1. On the regulation of the crime of damaging commercial reputation and commodity reputation
Article 221 of the Criminal Law stipulates that whoever fabricates and spreads false facts, damages the commercial reputation and commodity reputation of others, and causes heavy losses to others or other serious circumstances, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than two years or criminal detention and shall also or only be fined.
If the perpetrator makes a malicious complaint by fabricating and spreading false facts, with the purpose of damaging the goodwill of other businesses and causing heavy losses to the complained businesses, and the complained businesses can't carry out normal business activities, the malicious complaint behavior can be characterized as a business slander behavior and regulated by the crime of damaging business reputation and commodity reputation in Article 221 of the Criminal Law.
2. Blackmail control.
A malicious complainant who, for the purpose of illegal possession, uses threats, extortion and other means to force other businesses to deliver property, which results in a large amount or repeated extortion, constitutes the crime of extortion and is subject to the provisions of Article 274 of the Criminal Law. [13] Therefore, malicious complaints need to meet the minimum amount [14] or the minimum number of times to constitute extortion.
With the help of the complaint, the complainant deleted the product links of other businesses, which hindered the normal business activities of others and coerced other businesses to pay the so-called "authorization fee" before agreeing to withdraw the complaint in order to obtain illegal benefits.
Blackmail, as a means of extortion, is to inform the other party of the evil, that is, if the other party does not meet its own requirements for property, it will take unfavorable measures; Harm refers to some unfavorable consequences that will happen soon, but it is not limited to harming legitimate rights and interests.
Therefore, when the object of malicious complainant does not commit infringement, the complaint naturally damages the legitimate rights and interests of others, which conforms to the definition of extortion; When the object of complaint does commit infringement, although the malicious complainant has harmed the illegal rights and interests of others, the complaint still constitutes the crime of extortion.
Extended data
1. The malicious complainant is a market competitor.
There are two kinds of malicious complaints in the field of e-commerce: one is the actors engaged in commodity management or profit-making services, such as operators who violate their due diligence obligations to make complaints; The other kind is the actor who does not engage in commercial transactions, such as the actor who just maliciously registered trademark complaints rather than the operator himself.
Paragraph 3 of Article 2 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates that the term "business operators" as mentioned in this Law refers to legal persons, other economic organizations and individuals engaged in commodity business or profit-making services (hereinafter referred to as commodities including services).
Therefore, the first kind of malicious complainant naturally conforms to the definition of "operator" in the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and belongs to market competitors. Whether there is a competitive relationship between the complainant and the respondent must be determined by specific analysis.
The second kind of malicious complainants mostly do not engage in actual business, but only obtain the identity of external rights holders by maliciously registering trademarks or domain names, registering shell companies or forging documents. Such malicious complainants can hardly be defined as "operators" in the narrow sense of unfair competition, so they cannot be regulated by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
2. Malicious complaints violate the principle of good faith and recognized business ethics.
The Anti-Unfair Competition Law encourages and protects fair competition. As one of the operators in the field of e-commerce, the complainant should abide by the principle of good faith and recognized business ethics.
Even if the malicious complainant knows that his right status and ownership are uncertain, or the behavior of the merchant is not infringing, it will cause the third-party platform to delete the product links of other merchants, hinder the normal business activities of other merchants, or seek illegal interests by such improper means, which obviously violates the principle of good faith and recognized business ethics.
Reference source Baidu Encyclopedia-unfair competition behavior