Research On The Legal Protection Of Trade Secret Of Customer List

The legal protection of trade secret in our country has experienced the process of proprietary technology,non-patented technology and business secret.In judicial practice,the trial of cases concerning trade secret is difficult for us,and the main reason is that the relevant provisions of commercial secrets are too abstract.As a kind of information management,commercial secret has been protected in the "Anti-unfair Competition Law",but law only protects the reality of customer list in the specific sources of business information.And it means that the identification standards of commercial secret of client list are inconsistent.This thesis mainly investigates the related issues in the legal protection of the commercial secrets.This thesis,adopting case analysis,comparative study,historical analysis methods,analyzes the commercial secrets based on the typical cases in judicial practice.In this thesis,the general theories of the commercial secrets and customer list are compared from big to small ideas,and the situation of commercial secret protection is compared with the legislation of the main foreign countries.And the shortcoming of our country's legislation is thus pointed out and the improvement measures are raised.This thesis is divided into five parts and takes the analysis of the typical cases as the beginning.The first chapter,on the basis of three typical cases,analyzes whether a person violating customer list of company constitutes a crime,and the staff shall bear the criminal responsibility if they leak out the company's client list deliberately.By expounding the standards of customer list of commercial secret that is protected by law,this part demonstrates that not all customer lists are protected by law and law only protects the information of value and confidentiality.This chapter also analyzes the burden of proof between the illegal behavior and the injury result of employee,when the staffs employ the recorded information on the list to get profits when they leave the company.And it indicates that the requirement of the victim's burden of proof in current judicial practice is irrational and the burden of proof should be allocated properly in accordance with the principle of fairness and justice.The second chapter mainly analyzes the basic theory of customer lists,trade secrets and commercial secret right and other related concepts.The concept and features of trade secrets and customer list are respectively explained and their common features are stood out such as their value and confidentiality.The method of deductive reasoning is utilized to argue the protection logic of customer list,and the key of the logic is that the client list,as minor premise,should have business secret property.Then the author analyses the different academic views on the legislative nature of customer list,and points out that customer list,as a kind of business information enterprise,should be defined as one kind of intellectual property and any behavior that violates customer lists is considered to be a violation of intellectual property right of the enterprise.In the third chapter,through the analysis of the current situation of foreign customer list protection,the author points out the shortcoming of China in that field.Starting with the protection of customer list of the main representative countries of two law system,the author concludes that Germany's protection of the customer list is centered on "Anti-unfair Competition law" and the country tends to define the behavior of violating customer list as the destruction of competition.Japan attaches importance to the protection of competition law and labor law and regulates credit recovery measures.Britain,though it has no statute law on the protection of customer list,classifies the management information as customer lists and utilizes strict punishment means to ensure the stability of the commercial secret of customer list.The United States,a master of legislative protection of customer list,has clear provisions on the identification and protection standards of customer list.And the United States has gradually abandoned the idea of exemption of “memory defense” in the legislative process,and it strictly defines “immunity clauses” about the legal protection of commercial secrets of customer list.The fourth chapter summarizes the development process of China's trade secret protection,using the law cited way to illustrate different periods of legal provisions for trade secrets.And then the author,combining foreign protection experience,points out that China should adopt the ex-ante internal protection mode and expost factor law and policy protection mode.Finally,through the analysis of China's regulations on the above-mentioned aspects,the author points out that China's legislation is general with no clear regulation on the status of customer list law and the obligee has difficulties in right relief.In the fifth chapter,the author suggests some solutions to overcome the above-mentioned shortcoming in China's customer list protection.The protection of customer list should be improved from substantial law and procedural law.The specific measures include the enhancement of legislation,the addition of exclusion clause,clear and specific identification standard in substantive law,and the setting of the inversion of burden of proof,and the reasonable distribution of legal liability in procedural law.