China’s trade secrets What are the protected contents
Many laws in our country have clear provisions on trade secrets. According to the "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China" and the "Anti-Unfair Competition Law" and other relevant provisions:
1. Employees shall not take advantage of the enterprise ( (company)’s trade secrets for personal profit-related activities.
2. If it is not in accordance with the relevant provisions of the law or Before the enterprise agrees, it shall not disclose, use or allow others to use the relevant enterprise trade secrets for profit without authorization.
From this we can find that the protection of trade secrets is more Most of them emphasize workers’ confidentiality obligations or confidentiality responsibilities.
Infringement of trade secrets
1. Obtain the right holder’s business secrets through theft, inducement, coercion or other unfair means;
2. Disclose, use or allow others to use the rights obtained by means of the previous paragraph
3. With the right holder Units and individuals with business relationships violate the contract or the obligee's requirement to keep business secrets, disclose, use or allow others to use the obligee's business secrets in their possession;
4. The obligee's employees violate the contract or violate the obligee's requirement to keep business secrets, disclose, use or Allow others to use the rights owner’s trade secrets;
5. The third party knowingly or should have known about the aforementioned illegal acts obtains, uses or discloses the business secrets of others.
From the perspective of whether there are contractual obligations with the right holder of the trade secret, there are two categories of subjects that infringe the trade secret: First, based on the contract or regulations with the right holder Specific persons under the system who have confidentiality obligations (including obligee employees and transaction counterparties); second, anyone who has no contractual obligations with the obligee.
It should be noted that the parties use or transfer their independent research and development or other legitimate means to obtain the If the technical secret is the same as or similar to the technical secret, it does not constitute an infringement of other people's technical secrets. Unless otherwise provided by the law or otherwise agreed by the parties, through legal visits or disassembly, mapping, analysis, etc. of legally obtained products If the relevant technology is mastered through reverse engineering, it is obtained through other legitimate means.
Components of a trade secret
The essence of a trade secret is technical information or business information, but not all technical information or business information constitutes a trade secret. Whether it is technical information or business information, to constitute a trade secret, it must have the following elements ：
1. Confidentiality. It must constitute a trade secret , must first be confidential, that is, "not known to the public", which means that the information cannot be directly obtained from public channels. On the contrary, if some information has been known to the public or can be directly obtained from public channels, then It does not constitute a trade secret. Therefore, if someone else violates the principle of good faith and discloses the right holder's trade secret to the public, the discloser constitutes an infringement of the trade secret, but after the disclosure, the information no longer becomes a trade secret, and anyone can The information can be used freely. If others violate the principle of good faith and disclose the trade secret to a third party but do not disclose it to the public, the right holder can require the third party to protect its trade secret, and the third party shall not disclose the trade secret to anyone. The trade secret is also not allowed to be used.
2. The information can bring economic benefits to the right holder and is practical, that is, the technical information or business information has commercial value because it is secret and canEnable the owner to obtain economic benefits or gain a competitive advantage.
3. Confidentiality. Confidentiality refers to the confidentiality measures taken by the right holder of the relevant information, that is, the reasonable measures taken by the right holder based on the relevant circumstances, which can keep the technical information confidential under normal circumstances. Confidentiality and secrecy have different meanings. The former means that the right holder has subjectively taken confidentiality measures to prevent the public from knowing it, while the latter means that the relevant information has not been made known to the public objectively. If some information is objectively not known to the public, it is confidential, but the right holder has not taken confidentiality measures, and it does not constitute a trade secret, and the public can freely obtain it at any time. Similarly, even if confidentiality measures are taken, if it is still illegally disclosed by others, it does not constitute a trade secret.
Taking confidentiality measures mainly includes communicating with those who know the information The parties shall enter into a confidentiality agreement, establish a confidentiality system and adopt other reasonable confidentiality measures. As long as the obligee makes a confidentiality request and the employees of the obligee of the trade secret or others who have business relationships with the obligee of the trade secret know or should know that the trade secret exists, reasonable confidentiality measures have been taken for the obligee. The employees or others of the obligee of the trade secret shall bear the obligation of confidentiality to the right holder.
The above is the relevant information summarized by the editor of Legal Savior Network If you still don’t understand the content of this article, you can find a lawyer for consultation and guidance through the Legal Savior Network. They can tell you the answer directly.
