Competencia Desleal

Unfair competition: Industrial Espionage.

1.Definitions of unfair competition.

Is the unjust and often illegal attempt to gain unfair competitive advantage through false, fraudulent or unethical commercial conduct. Some examples include below-cost selling, counterfeiting or imitation, dumping, misleading advertising, rumour mongering, trademark or trade secret infringement.

Is when thecompetitors compete on unequal terms, because favourable or disadvantageous conditions are applied to some competitors but not to others; or that the actions of some competitors actively harm the position of others with respect to their ability to compete on equal and fair terms.

One kind of unfair competition is industrial espionage.

2.Definition of industrial espionage.

Is a form ofespionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security purposes. Economic espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governments and is international in scope, while industrial or corporate espionage is more often national and occurs between companies or corporations.


3.Industrial espionage on history.

Origin of industrial espionage.
Economic and industrial espionagehas a long history. The work of Father Francois Xavier d' Entrecolles in Jingdezhen, China to reveal to Europe the manufacturing methods of Chinese porcelain in 1712 is sometimes considered an early case of industrial espionage.
Historical accounts have been written of industrial espionage between Britain and France. Attributed to Britain's emergence as an 'industrial creditor,' the second decadeof the 18th century saw the emergence of a large-scale state-sponsored effort to surreptitiously take British industrial technology to France. Witnesses confirmed both the inveigling of tradespersons abroad and the placing of apprentices in England. Protests by those such as iron workers in Sheffield and steel workers in Newcastle, about skilled industrial workers being enticed abroad, led to thefirst English legislation aimed at preventing this method of economic and industrial espionage.

Industrial espionage during the cold war.
With Western restrictions on the export of items thought likely to increase military capabilities to the USSR, Soviet industrial espionage was a well known adjunct to other spying activities up until the 1980s. Some examples can be Operation Brunnhilde orsoviet spetsinformatsiya system.

The legacy of the cold war espionage
Following the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the 'Cold War', commentators, including the US Congressional Intelligence Committee, noted a redirection amongst the espionage community from military to industrial targets, with Western and former communist countries making use of 'underemployed' spies and expandingprograms directed at stealing such information.
The legacy of 'Cold War' spying included not just the redirection of personnel but the use of spying apparatus such as computer databases, scanners for eavesdropping, spy satellites, bugs and wires.


4.First case of industrial espionage in Spain.

In 1993, car manufacturer Opel, the German division of General Motors, accused Volkswagen ofindustrial espionage after Opel's chief of production, Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortúa, and seven other executives moved to Volkswagen. Volkswagen subsequently threatened to sue for defamation, resulting in a four-year legal battle.The case, which was finally settled in 1997, resulted in one of the largest settlements in the history of industrial espionage, with Volkswagen agreeing to pay General Motors$100 million and to buy at least $1 billion of car parts from the company over 7 years, although it did not explicitly apologize for Lopez's behavior.

5.Kinds of industrial espionage.

There are many kinds of industrial, the most important are hacking, social engineering and dumpster diving.

Hacking.
Computers are used by major corporations to store information, including financial...