Protection Against Product Imitation Under Unfair Competition Law

Introduction

The manufacturer of a product and his exclusive distribution partner do not require registered industrial property rights in order to protect the product against imitations. In Germany, the legal system also grants a product protection against imitation even if it is not protected by copyright, or by a registered design, trademark, utility model or patent.

1. Significance of protection against imitation under competition law

Even in cases where a product (but not an intangible product idea) is protected neither as a registered design, nor as a work in the copyright sense, nor as a three-dimensional trademark nor as a utility model or patent, the product may nevertheless be protected against imitations. The legal basis is the German Act against Unfair Competition, which protects the product against imitations if such are capable of generating in the purchaser an incorrect notion as to the origin of the product and if the imitator had reasonable