On August 28th, the "Symposium on the Third Anniversary of the Enactment of the E-commerce Law and the Construction of E-commerce Business Environment and Compliance Management of Platform Enterprises" jointly organized by the E-commerce Law Research Center of Peking University and the Public Opinion Data Center of People's Daily Online was successfully held on People's Daily. At the conference, the "Report on the Influence of the Third Anniversary of the Enactment of the E-commerce Law and the Top Ten E-commerce Cases" were released.

Among them, Lawyers Luo Suifang and Meng Xu from Guangdong Legal Shengbang Law Firm handled the infringement dispute case between Ao and Qiao, which was selected as one of the top ten cases.

Basic facts of the case

The plaintiff and defendant are both operators of an e-commerce platform, mainly engaged in online training courses for the IELTS exam. The defendant complained to the platform that the plaintiff's product was counterfeit or pirated, citing the consistency between the reading question "Bovids" sold by the plaintiff's store and the exam questions in the defendant's editor in chief question set, and provided their own appraisal opinion. The platform later determined that the plaintiff's product involved in the case was "selling counterfeit products in violation of regulations" and imposed penalties. After receiving a letter from the plaintiff's lawyer, the defendant refused to withdraw the complaint. The plaintiff filed a lawsuit with the court on the grounds of infringement of the defendant's behavior in the complaint.

Judgment results

Guangzhou Internet Court Judgment:

The complaint in question constitutes an infringement of the plaintiff's property rights,

The defendant shall compensate the plaintiff for economic losses and reasonable expenses.

Key points of the referee

1. Determination of malicious complaints

The court believes that in the complaint involved in the case, the defendant, even though they were not the right holders and did not have appraisal qualifications, still "defended their rights" through self-made appraisal opinions, and ensured in the appraisal report that the appraisal can serve as a basis for determining whether the complained product is fake. They promised to bear the legal risks caused by the appraisal report, which led to the e-commerce platform making incorrect deletion and link blocking measures. After receiving the plaintiff's lawyer's letter, Still not applying to the e-commerce platform to withdraw the complaint, the defendant's complaint behavior is subjective and malicious.

2. Property attributes of online stores

The court believes that online stores, as carriers of business activities in the cyberspace, have property attributes. Online stores generate intangible assets such as credit rating, sales ranking, customer stickiness, commercial reputation, and user big data due to their operation, which can bring economic benefits to the operating entity. The act of causing impairment of the aforementioned intangible assets will inevitably result in economic losses for the operating entity. However, in terms of loss calculation, the profit loss during the closure period of the online store does not have certainty and predictability. Therefore, the court determines the economic loss based on factors such as the credit status of the plaintiff's online store, the degree of fault of the defendant, specific infringement behavior and methods, consequences and impacts caused, etc.

The Guangzhou Internet Court's analysis suggests that:

The "notification deletion rule" is considered the most important legal rule to promote the development of platform economies in various countries, creating a "safe harbor" for the platform economy. However, in practice, malicious use of the "notice delete rule" to suppress competitors and seek improper benefits has also occurred, disrupting the normal economic order. To this end, the Electronic Commerce Law and the Civil Code have further improved this rule, clarifying the procedures for notification and counter notification, the obligation and degree of platform review, the connection between online and offline relief mechanisms, and the legal accountability for malicious notices, in order to regulate the actions of different subjects and achieve a balance of rights and obligations. This case has a strong typicality, involving the judgment of malicious complaints and the determination of economic losses. It is of great significance for a comprehensive and accurate understanding and application of the "notice deletion rule", clarifying legal boundaries, and regulating competitive behavior.