Non-competition And Trade Secret Protection

With the arrival of knowledge based economy, the society is more and more advanced. But in the fast pace of society development, the flow of talents bears much importance. Currently a lot of trade secret disputes show that the flow of talent is the most important channel for the drain of trade secret. Due to the unclear demarcation of trade secret by law, trade secret protection becomes the difficulty in talent flow. And the conflict between trade secret right holder and the employee is very obvious.Hence, non-compete agreement as a kind of preventive measures for protecting trade secrets is quite important. Seeking for a balance point between the protection of trade secret and employee's liberty in choosing jobs is the keystone to study and solve the non-compete agreement issue in trade secret protection.Part 1 of this paper is an overview of trade secret and non-compete agreement. It includes the formation, development, definition and features of trade secret and non-compete. The relation between trade secret and non-compete is illustrated in part 2. Part 3 of this article utilizes some cases to analyze the issues of non-compete and trade secret protection dispute existing in China judicial practice and to put forward corresponding methods and advice to solve these problems. In the last part of this paper, starting from the comparative law, the introduction of non-compete and trade secret protection legislation and legal precedent of America, Germany, Japan and Chinese Taiwan area has been made, then, the legislation status of China has been described. In the final section of the last part, through comparative study and analysis, we can gain some advantages in the legislation of trade secret protection and non-compete of foreign countries and Chinese Taiwan area, according to these advantages, relevant advice for perfecting the current legislation status has been brought forward.