| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣海洋大學 === 海洋法律研究所 === 95 === As the world moves rapidly toward an international commerce, industrial nations around the world are recognizing the importance of protecting trade secrets. Reviewing the century-long course and mastering its main trends will surely do a great help to our country in entering WTO , implementing the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights（TRIPS） and improving the legal system concerning the Protection of Trade Secrets . A trade secret is defined as any valuable business information that is not generally known and is subject to reasonable efforts to preserve confidentiality. Trade secrets are useful information that companies keep secret to give them an advantage over their competitors. The formula for Coca-Cola is the most famous trade secret. Generally speaking, a trade secret will be protected from exploitation by those who either obtain access through improper means, those who obtain the information from one who they know or should have known gained access through improper means, or those who breach a promise to keep the information confidential. While virtually every business has at least some trade secrets, they are quite fragile because they protect information and resources that are secret, which necessarily means that protection is lost if and when the secret becomes publicly known. It is often said that "a trade secret once lost is lost forever." The value of a trade secret lies in its secrecy. This survey also reveals a surprising uniformity in the treatment of trade secrets around the world. Trade secret theft constitutes a crime in many countries. The trends are exactly in consistency with the Intellectual-Economy and its Globalization Trend .With the advent of the Intellectual-Economy, the trade secret attracts more and more attentions due to its high business profit and market value. Thus, the international marketplace demands the uniform and effective enforcement of trade secret rights. The Century just passed by has seen the world wide development and improvement of the Legal Protection of Trade Secrets . By the end of last century, not only all the main countries in the world have established their legal protection system of trade secrets, but also many International Conventions have come to affirm trade secret as a type of intellectual property right, which leads to the globalization trend of trade secret protection, among which the related clauses concerning the trade secrets in TRIPS have pushed the above globalization trend to the utmost, which is exactly in consistency with the Intellectual-Economy and its globalization trend. The main trends of the above course could be summarized as following : the scope of Trade Secrets protected by law being increasingly wider , the protection power getting stronger and stronger , becoming more and more internationalized and globalized . Therefore, our country should follow the above trend and try to raise the legal protection level by improving Trade Secrets Law.
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