The Comparative Study Of Trade Secrets Legal System In Our Country And The European Union

With the development of economy and the fierce competition, the values of intellectual property rights become highlighted. To be the important part of intellectual property rights, trade secrets place an irreplaceable role in the innovation of enterprises and the maintenance of competition order. What different from the traditional intellectual property rights, such as patent rights, copyrights, trademarks, is that trade secrets take the form of non-public to protect information. That makes right holders have more autonomy, but it is also more vulnerable to be infringed. In our country the legal protection system of trade secrets which the core is "anti-unfair competition law" was established in the early 90s of last century, comparing with current economic development, it has a bit of lag and shortcoming. As the economic union which was established earlier, the European Union has been attached great importance to the protection of trade secrets. In November 2013, the European Union (EU) issued first trade secrets directive proposal which make the regulations of trade secrets infringing act at EU level aiming to provide favorable conditions for scientific and technological innovation, and make the member countries become coordinated and unified on the legal protection of trade secrets. The proposal not only shows the progress of legal protection of trade secrets in EU, but also enlightens the perfection of trade secrets legal system in our country.This article which makes the proposal as object combs and summarizes the legal system of trade secrets in our country and EU from the point of comparative law, put forward reasonable suggestions for our country’s legal system of trade secrets. The first part in the main body is comparison of legal system development histories of trade secrets between our country and EU, including our country protection situation of trade secrets before reform and opening, after reform and opening, and after entering the WTO. The EU also experiences member countries legislating independently stage, transitional legislation stage and uniform legislation stage. Then first part summarizes their features of development history and analyzes the reasons. The second part is comparison of requirements of trade secrets between our country and EU. This part by the analysis of defined ways and requirements gives the suggestions that detail the definition of trade secrets and discipline infringement act severely. The third part is comparison of civil legal liability of trade secrets between our country and EU, discussing the ways of assuming liability and corresponding regulations then giving suggestions. The fourth part discussing some differences about before and during proceedings and ways of settling lawsuits is comparison of proceedings for trade secrets protection between our country and EU, giving suggestions for act preservation before proceeding and security duty during proceeding. The last part is macro enlightenment that issue of EU proposal made for our country’s trade secrets legislation, including lawmaking of special trade secrets law and attention to proportionality of proceeding measures. The writer hopes that our country’s legislation of trade secrets could be improved gradually on the basis of learning advanced legislation to in accordance with current juridical practice better.