On The Criminal Law Protection Of Trade Secrets And Its Legislation Is Perfect

With the development of market economy, globalization of economy, science and technology, intensified competition of technology and trade, commercial secret is of increasing importance to enterprises. And illegal activities invading others' commercial secret become serious, causing greater damage to the obligees. To this end, all countries in the world lay growing emphasis on the legal protection of commercial secret. It has become the consensus that criminal law, the final barrier in the list of legal protections, uses its legal means to strengthen the protection of commercial secret.Article 219 of China's Criminal Law (1997) added the crime of commercial espionage where commercial secret was incorporated into the protection of the Criminal Law. However, as our research on commercial secret is at an early stage, there exist obvious unreasonable deficiencies and thoughtlessness about the crime of commercial espionage in such aspects as the constitutive elements of the crime and setting of the accusation and criminal penalty, resulting in difficulty of judicial practice and triggering controversy.This paper firstly studies the law theory of criminal protection of commercial secret, stating the essence of commercial secret. Then the paper focuses on reasons and reasonable limits of legal protection for commercial secret by criminal law from the perspective of obligation and clarifies its theoretical basis and norms. And the paper points out that the approach is to amend current provision based on analysis on the dilemma of criminal protection for commercial secret. Finally, the paper states deficiencies in detail in the specific provisions of the crime, including the constitutive elements of the crime, setting of the accusation and criminal penalty, and puts forward corresponding proposals based on criminal law theory and foreign advanced legislative experience.During the writing process, the author finds there are still many issues about the crime to be resolved in the future study and research as to find a best legal means to protect commercial secret in China.