In recent years, as companies implement strategies to protect their intellectual property in a competitive environment with rapidly developing technology, trade secret protection law has gained increasing importance. This is especially true in Asia, where the staggering commercial value of trade secrets, fierce cross-border competition, and large-scale labour mobility characterize the region's economy. This book - the first systematic study of trade secret protection law covering a number of key Asian jurisdictions - provides a detailed analysis of the relevant statutory and case law of Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and India. In addition, a chapter on European Union trade secret protection law is included for further purposes of comparison. Thirty-one local experts provide a clear overview of national laws and practices by examining the following aspects of their respective national regimes: requirements of trade secrets; validity and scope of confidentiality and/or non-competition clauses; burden of proof and its shifting or reversal; order for protecting the secrecy of a trade secret during prosecution and trial; civil remedies (injunctive relief and damages); and criminal punishment for trade secret infringement. With its authoritative insights and comprehensive coverage of the dynamic and multifaceted development of trade secret protection law in Asia, the book will be a primer for practitioners, corporate counsels, judges, and scholars concerned with cross-border protection of intellectual assets.

For business investors in China, the legal handling of trade secrets is often crucial. However, initiatives are often complicated by a patchwork trade secrets protection system – pieced together haphazardly over the last two decades and drawing on disparate elements of competition law, contract law, employment law, and criminal law – that diverges in significant ways from global standards and corresponding regimes in other countries. Now at last interested parties can benefit richly from a thorough and practical approach to the subject. This detailed analysis of China’s trade secrets law provides in-depth information and guidance on such important factors as the following: the current framework of China’s trade secrets law, its past development and its ongoing trends; legal comparison of China’s trade secrets law with various international, regional, and national schemes; what constitutes trade secrets infringement in China and what remedies are available; and the legal interaction in China between employment relations and trade secrets protection. The author pays close attention to judicial practice and precedent in the areas of civil remedies, criminal punishment, and administrative penalties. She also offers insightful proposals formulated to align China’s trade secrets law more efficiently with prevailing global standards and generally improve the mechanisms for its implementation. Corporate counsel and international lawyers concerned with intellectual property rights or labour law in China will greatly appreciate the knowledgeable guidance this book affords. They will gain a deeply informed perspective that allows them to avoid infringement, to battle it effectively if occasion arises, and to plan dispute resolution strategies for contingencies involving trade secrets protection in China.

Although every country seeks out information on other nations, China is the leading threat when it comes to the theft of intellectual assets, including inventions, patents, and R&D secrets. Trade Secret Theft, Industrial Espionage, and the China Threat provides an overview of economic espionage as practiced by a range of nations from around the world—focusing on the mass scale in which information is being taken for China's growth and development. Supplying a current look at espionage, the book details the specific types of information China has targeted for its collection efforts in the past. It explains what China does to prepare for its massive collection efforts and describes what has been learned about China's efforts during various Congressional hearings, with expert advice and details from both the FBI and other government agencies. This book is the product of hundreds of hours of research, with material, both primary and secondary, reviewed, studied, and gleaned from numerous sources, including White House documentation and various government agencies. Within the text, you will learn the rationale and techniques used to obtain information in the past. You will see a bit of history over centuries where espionage has played a role in the economy of various countries and view some cases that have come to light when individuals were caught. The book supplies an understanding of how the economy of a nation can prosper or suffer, depending on whether that nation is protecting its intellectual property, or whether it is stealing such property for its own use. The text concludes by outlining specific measures that corporations and their employees can practice to protect their information and assets, both at home and abroad.

Trade secrets and post-contractual non-compete clauses (restrictive covenants) are intrinsically linked issues when analysed in the context of past and present employment. While trade secrets have been the object of legislation in a number of major jurisdictions during the last couple of years, post-employment restrictive covenants have been left out of such legislative activity. Still, they have come under increasing scrutiny of economists and may well come into legislative focus in the near future. As the chapters of this book highlight in detail, the approach to the protection of trade secrets, the conditions under which an employer can protect trade secrets and other business interests by way of a restrictive covenant, and the scope within which former employees by using the skills and knowledge can compete with a former employer, hugely differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This is not only so for the effective scope, but also for the underlying doctrinal reasons, making a country-by-country comparison difficult, and a common structure of the chapters a challenge. After all, the topic involves international law (Paris Convention, TRIPS), domestic labour law, domestic sui generis protection, and, most importantly, domestic competition and unfair competition law, a field that up to now has defied all attempts of harmonisation beyond those categories as identified by Friedrich Zoll and implemented as Art. 10bis in the Paris Convention. This book features both comparative and country-specific chapters. The latter cover the major jurisdictions of Europe and Asia, while the former provide a subject-matter analysis by taking into account legislation and case law in a global context.

The book provides a clear overview of intellectual property legislation and policy, and atthe same time offers practical guidance on which sound preliminary decisions may bebased. Lawyers representing parties with interests in China will welcome this very usefulguide, and academics and researchers will appreciate its value in the study of comparativeintellectual property law.

This book deals with IP issues from a business perspective, focuses in particular on Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs). The topics covered in the 12 modules include the importance of IP for SMEs, trademarks and industrial designs, inventions and patents, trade secrets, copyright and related rights, patent information, technology licensing, IP in the digital economy, IP and international trade, IP audit, IP Valuation, and Trademark licensing.