Intellectual property rights are also protected by unfair competition legislation. Spain introduced unfair competition legislation in 1991, which is proving to be highly effective in practice.

The concept of unfair competition is very wide since any conduct objectively contrary to good faith is deemed to be unfair. The law includes amongst such forms of conduct Laws of confusion and deception, gifts which lock consumers into contractual obligations or which create confusion as to price, and Laws of denigration, comparison, imitation, exploitation of another’s reputation, breaches of confidentiality, incitement to breach of contract, infringement of laws on discrimination and dumping.

The main forms of unfair competition in relation to trade marks are unlawful Laws of imitation that take unfair advantage of a third party’s reputation or efforts.

Unfair competition rules also deal with know-how by defining as unfair competition the disclosure or exploitation of industrial or other business secrets obtained lawfully on the understanding that they would be kept confidential, without the consent of their owner.