Beijing Intellectual Property Court Releases Typical Cases of Infringement of Trade Secrets
On November 30th, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court held a press conference and released the top ten typical cases of infringement of trade secrets. These cases (see Beijing Intellectual Property Court Ten Classical Cases of Infringement of Trade Secrets in Chinese and English) have guiding significance for clarifying the trial ideas and judgment rules of infringement of trade secrets cases, enhancing the awareness of self-protection and compliant operation of enterprises, and forming a good atmosphere of respecting and protecting trade secrets in the whole society. The following will take the case of Infringement of Trade Secrets of Real Property Archive Data Software as an example to introduce.
XXX Data Information Technology Co., Ltd. (XXX Data Company) is the rights holder of the computer software (referred to as the software involved in the case) for a real property archive data digital system, and claims that the source code of the software involved in the case constitutes a trade secret. Cui was a former XXX Data Company software development engineer, engaging in the development of the software involved in the case, and after resignation, Cui was employed at XXX Technology Co., Ltd. (XXX Technology Company). XXX Data Company claims that the acts of Cui disclosing the source code of the software involved in the case to XXX Technology Company, and XXX Technology Company knowingly using the source code involved in the case as the trade secret of XXX Data Company, in the development of an alleged infringing software have breached the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China (1993) (Anti-Unfair Competition Law 1993). Therefore, XXX Data Company filed a lawsuit to Beijing Intellectual Property Court, requesting that XXX Technology Company and Cui be ordered to stop the infringement of trade secrets, eliminate the impact of such, and jointly compensate economic losses of 2 million Chinese Yuan and reasonable expenses of 50,000 Chinese Yuan.
The Court of First Instance, after trial, holds that XXX Technology Company has used information such as database tables, sequences, views, and function settings of the database design of the software involved in the case of XXX Data Company (referred to as the information involved in the case), breaching the provisions of Article 11(1) of Anti-Unfair Competition Law 1993, and thereby infringing the trade secrets of XXX Data Company. Therefore, the court orders XXX Technology Company and Cui to cease their infringement of the trade secrets of XXX Data Company, and jointly compensate economic losses and reasonable expenses of 200,000 RMB.
XXX Technology Company and Cui appealed to the Supreme Court, as they did not agree with the first instance judgment. The Court of Second Instance dismissed the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
The court held that information such as database tables, sequences, views, and function settings of the “database design” claimed by XXX Data Company does not involve program code, and although software users are able to read data information during the process of using software and access data tables information as required by users, the database tables, sequence design, views, function settings, and other technical information can only be accessed through certain technical measures in the program background rather than by direct observation during the use process, thus such information is confidential and can be protected as a technical secret.
Comparing the alleged infringing software with the technical information involved in the case, there are 34 software databases expressions that are completely the same. Considering that Cui was a former XXX Data Company software development engineer, and the software under allegation of XXX technology Company features abnormalities such as a large number of the names and phone numbers of XXX Data Company. On the premise that there is no contrary evidence to overturn such, it can be ascertained that the software under allegation of XXX technology Company used the technical information involved in the case of XXX Data Company. Therefore, the alleged act has breached the Article 10(1)-(2) of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law 1993, and constitutes unfair competition infringing the trade secrets of XXX Data Company.
(Adapted from news of Beijing Intellectual Property Court)
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