1. Obtaining trade secrets by unfair means
Article 9, paragraph 1 of my country’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates that operators shall not use theft, bribery, fraud, coercion, electronic intrusion or other unfair means to obtain the trade secrets of the right holder, that is, obtaining trade secrets by unfair means. The main manifestation of obtaining trade secrets by unfair means in the big data era is that hackers use technical means such as Trojans and viruses to invade the computer hard disk, e-mail or database of the enterprise to steal trade secrets. Another means is that cloud service providers or their employees use the advantages of managing websites and servers to secretly steal users’ trade secrets.
When the infringer is a competitor of the owner of the trade secret, this will weaken the competitive advantage of the owner of the trade secret and bring immeasurable losses to the owner of the trade secret.
2. Illegal disclosure, use or allowing others to use trade secrets obtained by unfair means
Article 9, paragraph 2 of my country’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law clearly prohibits such behavior. Illegal disclosure refers to spreading the trade secrets obtained by improper means to others; use refers to the acquisition of the illegally obtained trade secrets in their own production and business activities; allowing others to use refers to the acquisition of the trade secrets illegally provided to a third party for use by the acquisition in a paid or unpaid manner. This form of trade secret infringement in the era of big data is mainly manifested as illegal disclosure, such as uploading the trade secrets of the right holder to BBS, FTB, MSN, QQ, BT, Newsgroup, Telnet, blogs, Weibo or other web pages for netizens to download or spread, resulting in the loss of confidentiality of the trade secrets of the right holder.
3. Improper use and disclosure of trade secrets with legitimate sources
Improper use and disclosure of trade secrets with legitimate sources include two situations: one is that the unit or individual with a business relationship with the right holder violates the contract agreement or violates the requirement of the trade secret right holder to keep the trade secrets, and discloses, uses or allows others to use the trade secrets of the right holder in their possession; the other is that the employees of the trade secret right holder, including current employees and former employees, violate the contract agreement or violate the requirement of the right holder to keep the trade secrets, and disclose, use or allow others to use the trade secrets of the right holder in their possession. This infringement will damage the integrity and practicality of the trade secret information of the right holder, and make the trade secret lose its original value.
4. The third party maliciously obtains, uses, and discloses trade secrets
This infringement is mainly manifested in some computer enthusiasts who want to prove their superb hacking skills, or the competitors of the trade secret right holder use hacking technology to invade the computer information system of the trade secret right holder and deliberately spread computer viruses and other destructive programs, modify, delete, and other operations on the trade secret data stored on the server or in the process of transmission, destroy the trade secret data information of the right holder, or illegally obtain the trade secret of the right holder through these operations and disclose and use it.