Comparative research on the regime of the United States, European Union and Taiwan —— Focusing on Remedies in Trade Secret Civil Litigation

• Main Authors: Lin, Chun-Yi, 林君宜
• Other Authors: Shen, Chung-Lun
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/vy9k96

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 法律科際整合研究所 === 106 === Trade secrets play an important role in the boosting knowledge-based economy. Due to the nature of trade secrets, an infringement of trade secrets can result in the immediate loss of advantage, making the protection and remedies of trade secrets even more important. Furthermore, it is common for companies to do trans-national business activities, and competition among international companies is inevitable. The countries have been increasing the protection of trade secrets day by day. In order to protect the trade secrets of our people, Taiwan needs to keep up with the international trends of trade secrets protection. The United States and the European Union have subsequently introduced the acts on trade secrets in 2016, which showed the importance of trade secrets in the globe. This essay will focus on the civil remedies of trade secrets infringement in the aforementioned two acts. Specifically, this essay will look into the United State’s Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (the “DTSA”) and the European Union's Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (the “Directive”) and observe the differences among them and Taiwan. This essay first introduces the Directive. The Directive serves as the unified and minimum standard for the legislation of Member States on the protection of trade secrets. It reiterates the importance of trade secrets to the European Union. The Directive refers to the U.S. Uniform Trade Secrets Act (the “UTSA”), so the content of the Directive is similar to that of the U.S. trade secret laws and regulations. However, some of the provisions in the Directive are originated from the existing legislation of the Member States. As there are more and more cross-national companies nowadays, the protection of trade secrets being harmonized across the countries can benefit the overall trade secrets protection and R&D innovation. The rest of the world, including Taiwan, can also refer to the Directive for re-examination of its legislation regarding trade secrets. The DTSA was introduced due to the inconsistency of trade secrets protection among the states caused by the UTSA. The DTSA was aimed at providing a more comprehensive trade secrets legislation at the level of federal scheme, making relevant laws more predictable to those with legitimate interests in trade secrets. In order to ensure the trade secrets protection of U.S. companies engaging cross-national business activities, DTSA provides extraterritoriality reach for misappropriation of U.S. companies’ trade secrets. The legal regime of the United States has played an important role in Taiwan’s legal regime. Several concepts in the DTSA, including but not limited to the inevitable disclosure doctrine, ex parte seizure, and immunity to whistleblowers liabilities, can help to improve the legislation of trade secrets in Taiwan. Similar to the purpose of the Directive, the legislators created the DTSA to unify the difference of trade secrets legislation among the states. We can further observe the differences and similarities between the Directive and the DTSA. Lastly, by observing and analyzing Taiwan’s protection of trade secrets, with focus on civil remedies, this essay will review the predicament of Taiwan’s current legislation in terms of trade secrets protection, and attempt to provide suggestions on the amendment to trade secret law in Taiwan through the observation on the DTSA and the Directive.