Industry Hot Spots | The Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area held a training seminar on the theme of "Trade Secret Litigation Practice and Enlightenment"

2023-07-17

Recently, the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone Center and the Beijing Economic Development Workstation jointly held a training session on the theme of "Trade Secret Litigation Practice and Enlightenment", aiming to guide enterprises to use the trade secret protection system and enhance market competitiveness. Representatives of more than 40 enterprises in the Economic Development Zone participated in the training.

At the meeting, the lecturers gave a detailed explanation of the constituent elements of trade secrets, the selection strategies of trade secrets and patent protection, the common points of evidence for trade secret rights protection, typical cases, and the construction of enterprise trade secret management system, and provided targeted answers and suggestions for the specific questions raised by enterprise representatives.

Tips:

1. There are "three natures" in the constitutive elements of trade secrets.

The constituent elements of trade secrets have "three characteristics", namely, secrecy, confidentiality and value. Among them, secrecy refers to the fact that commercial information such as technical information and business information that constitute trade secrets is not known to the public; Confidentiality refers to the fact that the right holder of a trade secret takes corresponding confidentiality measures for the technical information, business information and other commercial information that it believes to be a trade secret, which reflects the right holder's willingness to protect the trade secret, and also enables the relevant personnel to know the existence and scope of the trade secret; Value refers to the fact that trade secrets can bring actual or potential commercial value and competitive advantages to the right holder in market competition.

In the process of practice, secrecy, confidentiality and value complement each other and are integrated. Therefore, to examine whether an enterprise's technical information, business information and other commercial information can constitute trade secrets, it is usually necessary to make a comprehensive judgment from three perspectives: confidentiality, confidentiality and value.

2. Enterprises need to reasonably choose intellectual property protection strategies based on product characteristics and their own actual conditions.

Enterprises should fully consider the characteristics of different types of intellectual property rights, and choose corresponding intellectual property protection strategies to protect their rights and interests. If the technology is not patentable, or the enterprise can ensure that the technical information can be used to monopolize the market for a long time by taking corresponding confidentiality measures, and the technical information is difficult to obtain by competitors, it is recommended to consider the strategy of using trade secret protection. If the technology is obviously patentable and belongs to the basic technology in a certain field, or the technology is an invention and creation with large market potential but low technical difficulty, which is easily obtained by competitors using reverse engineering or other legal means, it is recommended to consider the use of patent protection strategies.

Source: Beijing Intellectual Property Office