Case Study Of Unfair Competition For Infringement Of Trade Secrets In Violation Of Confidentiality Obligations

As an important resource in the development of the knowledge economy and market competition,trade secrets play an important role in promoting technological innovation,R&D and so on.Since the enactment of China’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law in 1993,increasing attention has been paid to the legal protection of trade secrets.Not only has been expanded in the 2019 amendment,but also the legal protection of trade secrets has been supplemented and refined through judicial interpretation.With talent becoming the key to competition,among all the ways of infringing trade secrets,"breach of confidentiality" has gradually become the main way of them.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct a special topic in the behavior of "breach of confidentiality to infringe trade secrets".This paper originally examines the theories of legal attributes and characteristics of trade secrets,confidentiality obligation,violation of confidentiality obligation,legal responsibility,etc.,and adopts the way of case study.The author has collected and quantified 81 cases(collected from 2011 to 2021)of violation of confidentiality obligation infringement of trade secrets unfair competition.In judicial practice,the main problems identified in judicial practice include: difficulty in identifying the components of trade secrets;vague identification criteria for the obligation of confidentiality;frequent conflicts between confidentiality obligations,employee rights and non-competition liability;and many disputes over legal liability.Through the analysis of the causes of problems,this paper believes that we can adopt the following ways to change: The first is to improve the relevant provisions of the law,clarify the scope of commercial secrets and the criteria for constituent elements;the second is to unify the criteria for the duty of confidentiality(include the duty in the non-competition).In addition,improving the level of judicial personnel in the trial is also important;the third is to adopt various forms of legal liability to regulate the violation of the duty of confidentiality and strengthen the protection of trade secrets.