부정경쟁방지법 제15조의 개정 필요성 및 개정 방향에 관한 고찰

Article 15 of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act is ambiguously worded, making it difficult to interpret. Moreover, there is the problem of no penalty without a law in that criminal punishment is possible depending on the interpretation. Regarding the Supreme Court's standards of interpretation, there are questions as to whether the specific direction of interpretation is correct depending on the difference in wording between the 1961 enacted law and the 1986 revised law, and whether the interpretation is consistent with the wording of the conflict provision. If so, it is judged appropriate to revise the current regulations rather than maintain them. It is difficult to find legislative examples of the current regulations. On receiving criticism after the enactment of similar legislation in Japan a long time ago, the regulations were deleted. Considering that each law has its own legislative purpose, and irrespective of whether the current regulations are retained or revised, the Unfair Competition Prevention Act will ultimately be applied to the abusive exercise of trademark rights and similar cases; this issue seems to be sufficiently resolved through interpretation theory. Hence, it seems appropriate to delete the provision.