Research On The Objective Aspects Of The Crime Of Infringing On Trade Secrets

Trade secrets are increasingly becoming the focus of legal protection because of their value.At the same time,criminal cases of infringing on trade secrets occur frequently,and the means of conduct also show diversified,which are not conducive to the healthy development of the economy.The amendment to the objective aspect of the crime of infringing on trade secrets in the Criminal Law Amendment(11)is a positive response to this trend.Legislative amendments also impose new requirements on judicial determinations.However,the practical community’s understanding of the objective aspects of the crime is not very accurate,and the theoretical research is not systematic.Therefore,in order to understand this crime more accurately and comprehensively,this article takes the Criminal Law Amendment(11)as the starting point and conducts research on the objective aspects of the crime of infringing on trade secrets in four parts,the main contents of which are as follows:The first part is formulation of questions,which firstly sorts out legal rules of the objective aspects of the crime of infringing trade secrets,and then summarizes the improvement of the“Criminal Law Amendment(11)”by comparison.Secondly,combined with judicial cases,this paper analyzes the main difficulties in determining the objective aspects of the crime of infringing trade secrets,including the identification of specific harmful acts is not clear,the lack of the uniform standard for the target of the crime and its characteristics,and the determination of "serious circumstances" is not clear.This section will set the stage for what follows.The second part examines the harmful acts listed in Article 219 of the Criminal Law through normative analysis and comparison.Primarily,clarifying the relationship between harmful acts and related crimes,which includes the relationship between “stealing” and larceny,“the behavior of bribery” and crime of bribery,“threatening” and robbery,“electronic intrusion”and the crime of illegally obtaining data from computer information system.Combined with above discussions,the second part then studies the connotation of harmful acts so as to deepen the comprehension of the harmful acts manifestations of the crime of infringing on trade secrets.The third part is a discussion of the criminal target.The criminal target of the crime of infringing on trade secrets is trades secret.After the relevant concept of trade secrets is deleted in the Criminal Law Amendment(11),the definition of trade secrets can refer to the provisions of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and other preliminary laws as well as relevant judicial interpretations.On this basis,the third part does research on the characteristics and connotations of trade secrets,holds the view that trade secrets in criminal law should be technical information and business information and other commercial information that are secret,valuable and confidential.The fourth part is about the understanding and determination of “serious circumstances”.Given the comprehensive nature of the term “circumstances” itself,and the amount of crime in“significant loss” with quantifiable characteristics which can be determined as an important reference standard for “serious circumstances”.This paper divides “serious circumstances” into circumstances identified by “significant losses” and “other serious circumstances” to construct a reasonable standard for identifying “serious circumstances”.Through the above analysis,in accordance with the content of existing legislation and judicial interpretations and combined with typical cases,this paper also provides personal humble opinions on consummate suggestions in the relevant part on the objective aspects of the crime of infringing trade secrets,in anticipation of a comprehensive and tentative understanding of this crime.