法院判决为软件不正当竞争提供有限指导

benjamin qiu

裘伯纯

in an unfair competition case involving network security software, the beijing no.2 intermediate people's court's intellectual property panel provided limited guidance on this type of cases by the way of its opinion. briefly, both the plaintiff, alibaba.com corporation (alibaba), and the defendant, qihoo.com (qihoo), provide network security software for downloading. once a user installs the plaintiff's software, if he then also installs the defendant's software, the latter will identify the plaintiff's software as a target to be cleaned up, and vice versa. the difference is, when a user having the plaintiff's software operates the defendant's software on the same computer, the latter software would indicate that it has located the plaintiff's software and label it as "malicious software" bearing potential risks and indicating "level of danger: intermediate". in addition, the defendant also announced in the media that the plaintiff's software is malicious.  

在一个涉及网络安全软件的不正当竞争案的判例中，北京第二中级人民法院的知识产权庭的判决为此类案件提供了有限的指导。简单来讲，原告阿里巴巴信息技术有限公司（阿里巴巴）和被告奇虎公司（奇虎）均提供网络安全软件供用户下载。一旦某用户安装了前者的软件，再安装后者的软件，后者软件在运行时就会指认前者软件为需要清除的对象，反之亦然。所不同的是，当已有阿里巴巴软件的用户在同一电脑上运行奇虎的软件时，后者会显示搜索到阿里巴巴的软件并指出前者为有潜在风险的“恶意软件”，并显示“危险级别：中”。另外，被告还在媒体上宣传原告软件是恶意软件。

in the opinion dated 20 december 2006, the court determined that the defendant violated article 2 of the anti-unfair competition law of prc, that is, "to follow the principles of freewill, equal dealing, fairness, and good faith, and to observe generally acknowledged business ethnics." however, since the plaintiff failed to submit sufficient evidences to prove its loss, the defendant was only ordered to pay rmb 30,000 as damages and reasonable litigation expenses.

法院在2006年12月20日的判决中认为被告的行为违反了《中华人民共和国反不正当竞争法》第二条的要求，即“遵循自愿、平等、公平、诚实信用的原则，遵守公认的商业道德”。但是由于原告未能提交充分的证据对其损失予以证明，被告仅被要求赔偿人民币三万元及诉讼合理支出。

defendant produced several pieces of evidence to show that the plaintiff's software is likely to be unknowingly downloaded and installed by users and is hard to delete. the court acknowledged the authenticity of the evidence. however, the court accepted the definition of "malicious software" promulgated by the internet society of china (isc) on 22 november 2006 as legal standard. the definition is vague, listing factors including compulsive installation, difficult to uninstall, browser hijacking, pop-up ads, malicious binding etc., and "other bad-faith acts infringing on a user's right to know and to choose regarding installing, using and uninstalling software."  regarding the plaintiff's objection to the defendant's use of the word "danger", the court referred to the dictionary definition as the legal standard.     

被告提出了多项关于原告的软件易被用户无意中下载和安装，且不易删除的证据。这些证据得到了法院的认可。但是法院将中国互联网协会于2006年11月22日公布的“恶意软件”的定义作为法律标准。该定义较为模糊，其中包括强制安装，难以卸载，浏览器劫持，广告弹出，恶意捆绑等多项因素和“其他侵害用户软件安装、使用和卸载知情权、选择权的恶意行为。”关于原告反对被告使用的“危险”一词，法院参照字典解释作为法律标准。

based on the isc definition of "malicious software", the court determined that the defendant lacked factual or legal basis to label the plaintiff's software as being malicious. likewise, the defendant lacked factual or legal basis to publicly announce that the plaintiff's software is malicious and to select the plaintiff's software on a user's computer for cleanup by default.

根据该定义，法院认为被告没有充分的事实和法律依据将原告软件列为有危险性的恶意软件，其在媒体上宣传原告软件是恶意软件，并将原告软件默认选中和清除的行为也没有事实和法律依据。

the key point of the case is the court's adoption of third-party definitions it deemed convincing as applicable legal standards. however, the proper source of a definition and whether the definition itself is too vague is full of uncertainty. the complaint was accepted on 17 october 2006, over one month before a definition of "malicious software" was published by the isc. therefore, the court used a legal standard not in existence when the plaintiff brought the lawsuit. furthermore, as mentioned, the definition is clearly too vague. in summary, in dealing with a case of this type, which third-party standard the court adopts is likely to determine the outcome of the case.

该案的特点是法院使用了其认为令人信服的第三方定义作为法律标准，但是该定义的来源以及该定义本身是否过于模糊则充满了不确定性。该案的受理日期为2006年10月17日，在中国互联网协会公布“恶意软件”的定义前超过一个月。因此，法院采用了一个在原告起诉时尚不存在的法律标准。另外，前面有提到，该定义明显过于模糊。综上，在此类案件中，法院采用何种第三方标准作为裁判依据关系到诉讼的成败。

（作者是路伟国际律师事务所驻北京律师，获美国加州执业资格。联系方式： benjamin.qiu@lovells.com; tel: 8518 4000）