Study On International Protection Of Trade Secret

Trade secret has a very high economic value. It is an important tool forcompanies to obtain economic benefits. It is also an important means for the countryto improve the international competitiveness. For these reasons, the legal protectionof trade secret is highly valued both at the national level and at the international level.With the continuous development of the global economy and trade, developedcountries use bilateral or multilateral treaties to promote the establishment of tradesecret protection regime in the world, in order to gain economic benefits fromdeveloping country. To obtain financial and technical support from developedcountries, developing countries have started to establish their own trade secretprotection system. In order to share the benefits of economic integration, everycountry starts enhancing international legislation of the intellectual property.Because of its economic value, international legislation of trade secret has also beenpromoted. Especially after TRIPs agreement provided that undisclosed informationis a kind of IP right, it set up the minimum standard to protect the trade secret by theWTO member’s domestic law. Technological innovation and globalization havechallenged the existing legal protection of trade secret; therefore, many countrieshave begun to amend domestic law to deal with the challenges. At the internationallevel, the developed countries began to build a new standard on internationalprotection of the trade secret by plurilateral agreement. Under this background, it is adifficult question for developing countries for how to balance the interest with thedeveloped countries, especially for China. In the present study, the author tries toanswer the above questions through the method of comparative study, history studyand text analysis. At the beginning of the thesis, the author briefly introduces thedefinition, the elements and the remedy theory of trade secret and then analyzes thereasons and the questions of the international protection on trade secret. What’s more,the current thesis provides the historical process about international protection oftrade secret and analyzes the current international protection standards of trade secret. In this study, the author points out the interests’ imbalance between developing anddeveloped countries under the TRIPs agreement. The existing internationalprotection standards of trade secret have been unable to cope with the demands oftraditional knowledge protection, the challenges of the Internet and the Cloud andthe impact of economic espionage. Under these backgrounds, the new internationalprotection standards of trade secret are on the way. Developing countries shouldseize this opportunity, on one hand, within the framework of the TRIPs agreement;developing countries should take advantage of the flexibility of the existing rules,use trade secret to protect traditional knowledge, to seek the balance of interestsbetween the developed countries. On the other hand, developing countries shouldinsist on mutual benefit basis, coping with the developed countries. Developingcountries also need actively participate in the construction of the new internationalprotection standards of trade secret. China as a big developing country shouldconsider our own intellectual property development stage and find our owncompetitive advantage. At the domestic level, we should amend our law to adapt thenew development of the trade secret. At the international level, we should use tradesecret to protect our traditional knowledge, and seek the balance of interests betweenthe developed countries and other developing countries.