Learn in the textbookPrevention of Unfair Competition and Software License Agreements
DefinitionThe Unfair Competition Prevention Act (不正競争防止法) regulates conduct that undermines fair competition between businesses, such as stealing and using another company's trade secrets or imitating its well-known product marks so that customers confuse the two.
ExplanationUnlike patent or trademark rights, it requires no registration and instead regulates the specific types of wrongful conduct the law defines. A trade secret here means technical or business information used in operations, such as a customer list or manufacturing know-how, that meets the legal requirements. The rules on shared data with limited access (限定提供データ), which protect data provided to specific parties, were revised by the Reiwa 5 (2023) amendment so that what is excluded from their scope is now trade secrets.
AnalogyIt is like a referee who hands out no prizes but blows the whistle on players who commit fouls.