Research On The Trade Secrets Exception For Government Information Disclosure

"The Ordinance on Government Information Disclosure of People's Republic of China" was promulgated finally, which indicates the Government's determination to build a transparent government. The key question of Information Disclosure is which information should be disclosure and which one should not, so the standards and scope of the disclosure system becomes the focus of the discussion. As one of the exceptions of information open, the protection of trade secrets is an important part of the information disclosure system. The contradiction between information disclosure and trade secrets protection embodied in the conflicts between openness and conservative natures of them and the conflicts between public interest and private interest. Therefore, how to balance between the public and private interests has become the primary problems after the promulgation of the ordinance.This article attempts to analysis the trade secrets exception of government information disclosure system, and divides into four chapters: The first chapter discusses the definition, characteristics and scope of the trade secrets in our legal system. Then introduces China's current trade secrets exception regulations of current government information open system, point out the particularity of the definition of trades secrets in government information open field.Chapter II explores the root of the conflicts between Government's information disclosure and trade secrets protection----the conflicts between private interests and public interests, then brings forward the resolution of the question, that's interests balance. Then focuses on the how to demarcate the boundaries of the various interests in the process of interests balance.Chapter III draws on the trade secrets exceptions regime of information disclosure from the U.S. Law. The U.S. law has established specific criteria to judge the trade secrets and confidential business information. The court considers that, the exception should be invalid when the public interests have been threatened. We also could learn from their relatively well relief system for trade secrets holders.Based on the above related research, the fourth chapter tries to put forward some proposals on improving our trade secrets exception system of the information disclosure field.