+2000 = Unfair Competition

+2000 = Unfair Competition

Li Dongtao

Keywords: unfair competition, well-known product, software, A, 2000.

The Facts

You think your better than me …

but your actions say differently

This is a case about “BEETER THAN”.

Both the plaintiff and the defendant are suppliers of software to the stock market.

In October, 1997, the plaintiff succeeded in developing stock software, called “A”, which was one of the company’s main products used for the management of stock investments.

Due to the high performance of the software, it had been rated one of the top 10 among stock software packages on the market.

The plaintiff placed lots of ads in the media nationwide.

Early in 2000, the defendant began selling its product, “B”, the stock software named “A2000”. The defendant used “A2000” on its product package and on its website as a clickable linking logo for advertising and downloading software “B”.

The contents of the two software packages were different and the two “A” s used by them were also written in different styles, but there was no difference in pronunciation.

The plaintiff sued the defendant for unfair competition (using the specified name of a well-known product).

The defendant argued that unfair competition was not established because the contents and packages of the two software, including the writing styles of the name “A”, were different.

The court ruled that the unfair competition was established because：

a.       a.        The plaintiff's software “A” was a well-known product.

b.       b.        Though the products of the two parties were different in content and package, including the name “A”, but there was no difference in how the name “A” was read. A+2000, the defendant "bridged the gap" between the two different software applications in this way.

In short, better than the plaintiff？ an action of unfair competition.

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