It’s been a hot year in the trade secrets field, with some huge verdicts and settlements, a renewed spotlight on cyberattacks, and an unusual flurry of trade secrets legislation. Trade Secrets Watch’s 2013 Year-in-Review highlights the notable trade secrets activity from the past year. READ MORE
European Union officials have just issued a draft set of rules that would impose uniform trade secret guidelines across the EU, motivated by trade pact negotiations with the United States and concerns about state-sponsored spying, according to The New York Times. Although the leaders of the European Commission have yet to sign off on the proposed rules, they plan to adopt them tentatively on November 27. The rules are then subject to a long legislative negotiating process before they come into force. READ MORE
Russia’s new Intellectual Property Court is now open for business, with 16 judges hearing trade secret, patent, trademark and other IP disputes.
The IP Court was officially established in 2011, and it started operation in Moscow on July 3, 2013.
The jurisdiction of the IP Court is limited: it handles cases involving disputes over the establishment and validity of IP rights as a court of first instance, and IP infringement cases as an appellate or cassation court. Civil cases on copyright protection, as well as criminal and administrative cases, are outside its jurisdiction. However, IP experts believe that it is only a matter of time before the court’s jurisdiction is expanded to include more types of IP disputes.
Can trade secret owners secretly petition a court to seize property from a competitor that they suspect of stealing trade secrets? In the United States, the answer is: “Not yet.” This is one of the issues that Congress is considering as it debates a myriad of proposed trade secret reform bills. But in France, ex parte seizure orders have been available for some time and can be a powerful tool for trade secret owners to preserve the status quo and prove a case of trade secret misappropriation.
In France, companies that suspect a competitor has stolen its trade secrets can bring an action for unfair competition before the “Tribunal de Commerce,” or Commercial Court. In these types of cases, trade secret owners can allege that their competitors are unfairly benefitting from the plaintiff’s research and development efforts. Although discovery in France is limited, Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure can help plaintiffs obtain the necessary evidence through a pretrial investigative measure known as a “référé in futurum.” READ MORE
Just because Russia gave asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden doesn’t mean the country disrespects secrets. When it comes to confidential business documents, at least, Russia has a well developed body of trade secret laws. Check out our primer here.
Germans are famous for their love of order. But German trade secret law is untidy. Like many EU countries and like the United States, Germany has no national trade secret law per se. Its criminal and civil laws provide for broad trade secret protection — if you know how to navigate them.
A quick primer on Germany’s trade secret laws is available here.
Italy, the country that enlightened the world with the Renaissance, has given us some of the greatest inventors and geniuses in history, from Leonardo da Vinci and Galieo Galilei to Georgio Armani.
But Italy is learning that a great invention is sometimes only as good as the trade secret laws that protect it. Italy is modernizing its trade secret laws to bring them into greater conformity with international standards such as the TRIPS Agreement. A quick primer of Italy’s trade secret laws is available here.
On the same day last week, two rival rubber resin companies issued press releases — each claiming legal victory in the same trade secret dispute.
SI Group, a developer of rubber resins and tackifiers, touted its “significant victory” over Sino Legend before the U.S. International Trade Commission. On the same day, Sino Legend also claimed victory in a parallel Chinese action when the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court rejected SI’s claims concerning the same dispute.
SI ’s ITC complaint alleged that Sino Legend misappropriated SI’s secret manufacturing processes by poaching one of SI’s Shanghai-based employees, Xu Jie. Xu was allegedly the only person at the plant who had access to the entirety of SI’s secret manufacturing processes. Shortly after Xu’s departure from SI, Sino Legend began producing competing products. SI accused Sino Legend of using SI’s secret processes and of filing patent applications that contained misappropriated Sino Legend information.
Trade secret theft knows no borders in an age of cybertheft and global corporate espionage. But U.S. district courts are often too slow and procedurally ill-equipped to help in cases of international misappropriation, with several recent cases never getting off the ground because of problems serving foreign defendants. Increasingly, victims of foreign misappropriation are turning to the U.S. International Trade Commission — a body armed to hit back at trade secret thieves anywhere in the world.
For companies seeking to remedy the theft of trade secrets by overseas perpetrators, the options have been limited, especially if the thief or the products the thief produces are outside of the United States. Procedural hurdles like obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign company, or the perpetrator’s resident country being inhospitable to claims by an American victim, can thwart an American corporation’s ability to prosecute the foreign theft of its own trade secrets.
An ITC action doesn’t present these obstacles. READ MORE
As President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping prepare for a summit this week in Rancho Mirage, California, the rhetoric over China’s alleged plundering of American government and corporate secrets might lead you to think that the country is lawless when it comes to the theft of trade secrets inside its own borders.
You would be mistaken. China has intricate layers of trade secret laws and government agencies that deal with them. This body of law flows from its statutes, including its 20 year-old “Anti-Unfair Competition Law of China,” its regulations such as its “Certain Provisions on the Prohibition of Misappropriation of Trade Secrets,” and its courts. What China lacks are formal discovery tools and effective remedies for misappropriation.
All of this can make China a complex place in which to operate for a company trying to protect its trade secrets. Start getting up to speed with our primer on China’s trade secret laws, available here.
