The Law Against Unfair Competition
Full course description
The intensive course on the Law Against Unfair Competition will focus on the way in which the obligations arising from Article 10bis of the Paris Convention have developed over time, and how they have resulted in codified and non-codified means to safeguard the functioning of a competitive market. At the end of the course the student is capable of identifying acts of unfair competition, such as causing confusion, making false allegations, and misleading the public, but also deal with tort concepts such as misappropriation, dilution, and free riding on the coat tails of a competitor.
Teaching Method and Grading:
The course is taught in a Socratic manner and encourages and requires students to actively participate. In order to obtain credits, each student will have to present arguments during a mock trial appearance of 15 minutes and the related brief, or a PPT with presentation for the same time, so that students learn to articulate the above-mentioned concepts in oral and written form.
Course objectives
This course should enable students to understand the way in which the law against unfair competition serves to ensure that the market remains competitive and free from acts that cause market disruptions. Students will also, through comparative study, learn to appreciate that 'unfairness' is a culturally laden term that courts interpret differently depending on interventionist or free market economy thinking.
Students are assessed on their basis of their written and oral presentations in regard of the presentation or mock trial they have been assigned. Importance is attached to structure, content and skills in oral presentation which will enable the instructor to verify whether the intended outcomes have been achieved.
The course is taught by Prof. Christopher Heath and Prof. Anselm Kamperman Sanders