What's the trade secret?
Pursuant to Article 10 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, trade secrets are technical and business information that meet the following requirements:
I. not known to the public;
II. Have economic value; and
III. Confidentiality measures have been taken by owners.
As a result, all kinds of information may become trade secrets under Chinese law. Information that may constitute a trade secret includes: customer lists, customer information, customer preferences, supplier lists, pricing information, marketing/product strategies, internal cost information, production processes, formulas, and technologies/processes that are not patentable or have not been applied.
How many types of trade secret infringement?
Article 10 of the Unfair Competition law specifies three types of trade secret infringements:
- obtaining trade secrets by stealing, luring, coercion or any other illegitimate means;
- Disclosing, using or allowing others to use the trade secrets obtained by the means above;
- Disclosing, using or allowing others to use the trade secrets in violation of the agreement with its owners.
In addition, a third party obtains, uses or discloses the trade secret by the means above, which shall be deemed as infringement.
Exceptions to trade secret protection
Reverse engineering. the acquisition of information by using self-development or reverse engineering does not constitute an infringement of trade secrets. "reverse engineering" refers to the acquisition of information through technical means such as disassembling, mapping and analysing products obtained from the public.