Beijing court issues guideline to help litigants protect trade secrets

A Beijing court has issued a guideline to help litigants protect their rights in trade secrets disputes, after seeing many litigants fail in lawsuits due to insufficient knowledge about the issue and weakness in evidence collection.

The 61-article guideline, made by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, answers frequently asked questions by litigants, such as what trade secrets are, what acts can be identified as infringement of trade secrets, which party needs to be held liable for trade secret infringement, and what evidence should be collected if suffering from such a lawsuit.

"To help litigants understand trade secrets and relevant judicial procedures more specifically and intuitively, the document was introduced through FAQs," Song Yushui, vice-president of the court, told a news conference.

She explained that making such a guideline is not only because trade secrets are an important intellectual property protection object as well as a core competitiveness of enterprises, but also because relevant infringements are relatively hidden and the right holders have difficulties in providing evidence.

On Thursday, the court also disclosed 10 influential cases concerning trade secrets, which covered various fields, including photoelectricity, software, biology, the internet, and big data.

"Strengthening the protection of trade secrets is of great significance to promoting scientific and technological innovation, and advancing the high-quality economic development," said Xu Zewei, a deputy to the Beijing People's Congress, the capital's top legislature.

He added that the guideline will also contribute to enterprises solving problems in innovation, with a sound business environment provided for them to have a rapid development.