一、 中国商业秘密司法保护的基本情况
中国对商业秘密的保护起步于上个世纪90年代反不正当竞争法的颁布。
2000年后，最高法院发布了关于技术合同与反不正当竞争法律适用等两个重要司法解释，完善了对商业秘密的法律保护。近些年来，最高人民法院高度重视并大力加强商业秘密案件审判工作，通过司法解释、司法政策、案例指导等方式，不断加大商业秘密保护力度，有效地保护了商业秘密权利人的合法权益。
I. The basic situation of judicial protection of trade secret in China
The trade secret protection in China started in the 1990s, when the Law Anti-unfair Competition of PRC was promulgated. The Supreme Court issued two important judicial interpretations about technology contract and the application of the Law anti-unfair Competition of PRC etc. after 2000, which has perfected the legal protection of trade secret. In the recent years, the Supreme Court has attached great importance to and greatly strengthened the trial work of trade secret cases, and constantly enhanced the protection of trade secret through ways of judicial interpretations, judicial policies, case instructions etc., which has protected the legitimate rights of trade secret owners effectively.
1. 商业秘密案件的基本规律和特点
从中国的人民法院受理商业秘密案件的情况看，该类案件具有如下特点：一是商业秘密案件总量不大，基本稳定在年均200-250件左右，但在不正当竞争纠纷占有较大比重，占20%左右。二是商业秘密案件地区分布极不均衡，主要集中在经济发达地区，很多经济欠发达的内陆省份尚未受理商业秘密案件。三是在案由分布上，侵犯经营秘密案件占有较大比重，约为60%。四是原告举证难度大，侵犯商业秘密行为大多由前雇员实施，事发前具有很强的隐蔽性，权利人对侵权人实施侵权行为、侵权获利的证据往往难以全面掌握。
1 The basic rules and characteristics of trade secret cases
Regarding the acceptance of trade secret cases in people’s courts, this kind of cases has the following characteristics. First, the total amount of trade secret cases is not very large, which is basically stable at an annual amount of about 200-250, but it is of a large proportion of the unfair competition disputes which is around 20%. Second, the area distribution of trade secret cases is extremely unequal. They are concentrated mainly in the developed areas, while many less developed inland provinces have not yet accepted any trade secret cases. Third, according to the distribution of causes of cases, cases about infringement of management secrets are of a large proportion which is around 60%. Fourth, it is very difficult for the Plaintiff to collect evidence. The infringement of trade secret is mainly implemented by former employees, which cannot be easily found in advance. It’s very difficult for the right holder to have a comprehensive grasp of the evidence to prove the infringer’s implementation and profits of infringement.
2. 商业秘密司法保护的基本依据和司法政策
为解决商业秘密案件涉及的具体法律应用问题，最高人民法院相继出台了相关司法解释，并以审判工作会议和发布会议文件方式明确界限、解决疑难问题及明确相关司法政策。
2 The basis and judicial policies of judicial protection of trade secret
In order to solve the problem of specific legal application involved in trade secret cases, the Supreme Court has promulgated the relevant judicial interpretations, and also cleared boundaries, solved knotty problems as well as cleared the relevant judicial policies by ways of conferences on judicial work and issuance of conference document.
在司法解释层面，最高人民法院先后在多部司法解释中规定了商业秘密保护问题。2004年11月30日，最高人民法院发布了《关于审理技术合同纠纷案件适用法律若干问题的解释》（2005年1月1日起施行）。该解释对侵害他人技术秘密的技术合同的处理（第12条、第13条）、技术开发合同中技术秘密成果的使用和处分（第20条）、技术秘密的转让和许可等问题作出了规定。2006年12月30日，最高人民法院发布了《关于审理不正当竞争民事案件应用法律若干问题的解释》（2007年2月1日施行）。该解释用9-17共计9个条文对商业秘密保护问题作出了详细而具体规定，是迄今为止商业秘密保护方面最为完整和最重要的司法解释。
In terms of judicial interpretation, the Supreme Court has regulated relevant provisions about trade secret protection in many judicial interpretations. The Supreme Court issued Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court concerning Some Issues on Application of Law for the Trial of Cases on Disputes over Technology Contracts (come into force on January 1, 2005) on November 30,2004.This interpretation regulates the provisions about issues of handling of technology contracts infringing others’ technical secrets(Article 12, Article 13), use and dispose of technological secret achievement in technological development contracts (Article 20), and the assignment and licensed use of technological secrets. The Supreme Court issued Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Some Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Cases Involving Unfair Competition （come into force on February 1, 2007）on December 30,2006. The interpretation makes very detailed and specific provisions about trade secret protection in 9 articles in total from Article 9 to Article 17, which is the most complete and the most important judicial interpretation about trade secret protection so far.
为了统一法律适用和裁判标准，最高人民法院还通过司法政策来指导商业秘密司法实践。这些司法政策体现在最高人民法院领导同志的讲话、发布的司法文件中。例如，最高人民法院《关于充分发挥知识产权审判职能作用推动社会主义文化大发展大繁荣和促进经济自主协调发展若干问题的意见》对商业秘密保护中的需要注意的重点问题作了迄今为止最完整的规定，涉及合理把握证明标准、降低证明难度、合理把握保护范围以及商业秘密保护与择业自由、竞业限制的关系等方面。该意见明确提出了解决商业秘密权利人举证困难问题，要求根据案件具体情况，合理把握秘密性和不正当手段的证明标准，适度减轻商业秘密权利人的维权困难。为此，该意见明确了减轻举证困难的具体措施，例如，该意见指出，“权利人提供了证明秘密性的优势证据或者对其主张的商业秘密信息与公有领域信息的区别点作出充分合理的解释或者说明的，可以认定秘密性成立”。意见还首次提出了商业秘密侵权事实推定规则，“商业秘密权利人提供证据证明被诉当事人的信息与其商业秘密相同或者实质相同且被诉当事人具有接触或者非法获取该商业秘密的条件，根据案件具体情况或者已知事实以及日常生活经验，能够认定被诉当事人具有采取不正当手段的较大可能性，可以推定被诉当事人采取不正当手段获取商业秘密的事实成立，但被诉当事人能够证明其通过合法手段获得该信息的除外”。
In order to unify the legal application and the judgment standard, the Supreme People's court also guides the judicial practice of trade secrets through judicial policies. The judicial policies are embodied in the leading comrades’ speeches and judicial documents issued by the Supreme People's court. For example, Notice of the Supreme People's Court on Issuing the Opinions on Issues concerning Maximizing the Role of Intellectual Property Right Trials in Boosting the Great Development and Great Prosperity of Socialist Culture and Promoting the Independent and Coordinated Development of Economy has the most complete provisions of key issues about trade secret protection so far, for instance the reasonable grasp of the proof standard, lower the difficulties of proof, reasonable grasp of the scope of protection, relationship between trade secret protection and free choice of occupation and non-competition restrictions. The notice clearly puts forward to resolve the difficulties right holder has when they need to prove trade secret infringement, and stipulated that the Court should reasonably verify the standard of secret and improper means, and moderately reduce the difficulties of maintaining legal rights for trade secret right holder according to the specific situation of the case. Therefore, the notice clarifies the specific measures to reduce the proof difficulties. For example, the notice points that,“Where the right holders have provided preponderant evidence on confidentiality or have made a sufficient and rational explanation or statement of the differences between their trade secrets and information in the public domain, confidentiality may be held established.”The notice also puts forward the fact presumption rules of trade secret infringement,“Where the right holders have provided evidence that the information possessed by the defendants is identical or substantially identical to their trade secrets and that the defendants are in a position to access or illegally obtain the trade secrets, if there is a high possibility that the defendants have adopted unjustifiable means in light of the specific circumstances of cases or known facts and daily life experience, it may be presumed that the defendants have adopted unjustifiable means to obtain the trade secrets in question, unless the defendants can prove that they have obtained relevant information by lawful means.”
3. 商业秘密诉前保全措施与证据保全
在我国修改后民事诉讼法（2012年修订）施行之前，我国相关民事诉讼法和知识产权法均未规定可以在商业秘密案件中采取诉前临时禁令、诉前证据保全等诉前保全措施，因此人民法院无权采取上述措施。修改后民事诉讼法（2012年修订）增加了行为保全和诉前证据保全的规定，并将诉前证据保全和诉前行为保全扩大适用于全部民事案件领域。据此，人民法院在商业秘密案件中可以采取诉前保全措施。
3 The preservation measures before litigation and the evidence preservation of trade secret
Before the implementation of Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China (2012 Amendment),there weren’t any provisions about taking preservation measures before filing the lawsuit as temporary injunction and evidence preservation in trade secret cases in Civil Procedure Law or Intellectual Property Law. So the people’s court has no right to take measures as above. The amended Civil Procedure Law (2012 Amendment) has added provisions about behavior preservation and evidence preservation before filing the lawsuit, and extended the scope to all areas of civil cases. According to this, the people’s court may take the preservation measures before the lawsuit is filed in trade secret cases.
为了进一步加强商业秘密保护力度，最高人民法院在新民事诉讼法颁布后，通过通知方式要求各级法院及时受理利害关系人的诉前证据保全或者诉前行为保全申请，并积极采取相关措施。同时，在第三次全国法院知识产权审判工作会议上，院领导进一步强调，要积极合理采取知识产权保全措施，充分利用保全制度的时效性，提高知识产权司法救济的及时性、便利性和有效性；加大证据保全和依职权调取证据的力度，凡是符合证据保全或者调查收集证据条件的，均应及时采取相关措施。新民事诉讼法施行后，上海市第一中级人民法院在一起涉及美国权利人的商业秘密侵权案件中，颁发了第一件涉及商业秘密的临时禁令，取得了良好的社会效果。民三庭目前正在起草诉前临时措施问题的司法解释，有关问题将在该解释中进一步明确。
In order to further strengthen the trade secret protection, the Supreme Court requires the courts at all levels promptly accept the application of the interested parties for behavior preservation and evidence preservation before filing the lawsuit, and take relevant measures positively. Meanwhile at the third National Conference on intellectual property adjudication of courts, the court’s leaders stressed that take intellectual property preservation measures positively and reasonably, make full use of the time sensitiveness of the preservation system, improve the promptness, convenience and effectiveness of intellectual property judicial remedy; increase the force of evidence preservation and obtaining the evidence by authority, which means that relevant measures shall be timely taken in line with the conditions of evidence preservation or investigating and collecting evidence. After the implementation of the new Civil Procedure Law, the Shanghai first intermediate people's court issued the first preliminary injunction related with trade secret in a trade secret infringement case involving American right holder, which has achieved great social effect. The third civil tribunal is currently drafting a judicial interpretation about preliminary measures before filing the lawsuit, in which the relevant issues will be further cleared.
二、 中国商业秘密司法保护存在的问题和缺陷及相关完善建议
1. 缺少一部针对商业秘密的专门法案。
当前，中国仍在根据一系列零散的法律、法规来保护商业秘密，还没有一部全国统一的商业秘密法。首先，现行立法规定过于分散，内容也较为片面。其次，现行立法在内容上存在概念笼统、混乱，称谓不统一等情况，缺乏可操作性。最后，现行立法对于商业秘密保护最直接的是《反不正当竞争法》，这使得一部分人并不将商业秘密视为一种知识产权，而仅认为其属于一种竞争手段，已经不利于商业秘密的有效保护。
Ⅱ The problems, defects and related suggestions of judicial protection of trade secret in China
1 The lack of a specialized law protecting trade secret.
At the present, China is still protecting trade secret according to a series of provisions scattered in different laws and regulations and there is lacking of a unified national law of trade secret protection. The current legislation is too scattered, and the content is relatively unilateral. Then, the current legislation lacks operability because of the generalness and confusion of concept, and the lack of uniformity of titles in the content. Last, the current legislation governing the protection of trade secret is Law of the People's Republic of China Anti-Unfair Competition, which makes a part of people not treat trade secret as a kind of intellectual property, but a kind of means of competition instead. Such is not good for effective trade secret protection.
完善建议：单独对商业秘密进行立法，这是国际上对商业秘密保护的一种趋势，而我国当前的商业秘密还存在很多的缺点，进行局部的修改并不能彻底解决问题，故我国应当制定专门的《商业秘密保护法》。在这部法律中，首先，应明确商业秘密的概念及权属。即应当以国内立法的方式明确商业秘密是一项重要的知识产权，属于民事权利分类中的绝对权，这样不仅与国际商会及世贸组织等国际条约的规定相一致，并且也明确了商业秘密的所有人在其权利受到侵犯时，不仅可以适用《商业秘密保护法》，而且也可适用民法中的相关规定，使权利人被侵权时可依相关民事责任得到赔偿，更好地保护商业秘密权人的利益，加大了保护的法律强制力度，以及对认定模糊性的去除。
Suggestions for perfection: Separate legislation should be made for trade secret protection, which is a trend on the protection of trade secret in the world. Since there are many defects in trade secret protection of our country, which can’t be completely solved by partial modifications. So the specialized Trade Secret Protection Law should be made in our country. In this law, the concept and ownership of trade secret should be cleared first. It should be cleared by domestic legislation that trade secret is an important intellectual property right and belongs to the absolute right of the classification of civil rights. In this way, it will be consistent with the provisions of the International Chamber of Commerce, the World Trade Organization and other international treaties. It should also clarify that when the trade secret owner’s rights are infringed, not only Trade Secret Protection Law can be applied, but also the relevant regulations of the civil law. In this way, the right holder can get compensation according to the relevant civil liabilities when his rights are infringed, which offers a better protection for the interests of trade secret right holders, enhances the law enforcement efforts of trade secret protection, and helps remove the fuzziness of legal identification.
2. 原告在此类案件中面临繁重的举证责任。
在中国，商业秘密民事审判的举证责任归于原告。而且，在收集证据过程中限制其使用私家侦探，因此，原告往往得花费大量的时间和资源来收集侵权信息。
2 The heavy burden of plaintiff proof in such cases.
In China, the burden of proof belongs to the plaintiff in trade secret civil trial. Moreover, the use of private detectives is restricted in the evidence collection process. So the plaintiff often has to spend a lot of time and resources gathering the infringement information.
完善建议：我国可考虑在现行《民事诉讼法》或其司法解释中规定有关商业秘密诉讼举证责任的特别规定，以解决现行诉讼中被侵权人因举证困难而导致无法维护自身合法权益的情况。
Suggestions for perfection: It can be considered that we can add some special provisions about the burden of proof in trade secret litigation in the current Civil Procedure Law or its judicial interpretation, in order to solve the situation that the right holder is unable to safeguard their legitimate rights because of the difficulties of proof in the current litigation.
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