Discussion Of Trade Secrets Protection Legislation

In market economy, people have realized the importance of Trade Secret. So establishing a complete legal system to protect it is not only the developed countries' practice, but a common appeal in the world. As a legal term, there is not an authoritative definition of it. According to the legislation and academic opinions from different countries, the definition may be like this, Trade Secret, unknown to the public, contains trade value, and technology information and management information protected by traders with secret measures. Trade Secret contains two features - secret and value. The secret feature means management information and technology information .The legal characteristics of trade secret are the basic factors for the legal protection .In foreign countries, the legal term, such as standard property rights, property rights, creditors' right, personality rights, enterprise rights, etc, only property rights are take into account in legislation. In fact, Trade Secret is not only a property rights, but a special intellectual property right, as it has some common features of intellectual property. However, it differs from traditional intellectual property. The main differences are the complexity of the subjects, specialty of the objects, and indefinite time limit of the legal rights.In China, the present legislation for protecting Trade Secret is relatively scattered and weak. The main weakness is that the legal status is not clear, there are not enough rules to protect intellectuals floating and fewer responsibilities for torts, far from international practices. To strenghen the legislation and legal protection for Trade secret, we should learn from foreign countries' experiences and make a special Trade Secret Act. While we are legislating, we also pay attention to the followinglearn from foreign countries' experiences and make a special Trade Secret Act. While we are legislating, we also pay attention to the following aspects. First, the legal protection standard, too high or low a degree, the law will not achieve the goals. Second, the legal extent, containing two aspects, subjects' extent and objects' extent. Third, legal duties, the relationship between Trade secret protection and the civil rights of freedom of job choice should be balanced. The content of Trade Secret Act is supposed as following five chapters, (1) general rules, (2) contents of Trade secret and the legal rights, (3) torts, (4) responsibility for torts, (5) appendix.