Discussion on the elements of crimes of the Trade Secrets Act Article 13-1

• Main Authors: LAI,YEN-FU, 賴彥夫
• Other Authors: Cheng, Yat-Che
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/zy9s2r

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 法律學系一般生組 === 106 === In terms of the development of industries in Taiwan, the methods that the enterprises from the past used to enhance competitiveness are mostly to upgrade technologically to reduce costs, or develop the new products to create the demand of new markets. However, nowadays we are entering the stage of knowledge concentrated industries and it always turns to rely more on R&D and innovation as competitive advantages. However, if the industrial espionage or the job hopping of the executives occurs, it will cause significant damages. So the companies gradually begin to pay attention to the trade secret, non-compete, technological control. The Trade Secret Act of Taiwan was revised on 30 Jan. 2013 by Legislative Yuan, and added the provisions of criminal sanctions of Articles 13-1 to 13-4 to make the protection of trade secret in Taiwan more comprehensive, and maintain the industrial ethics and competition order, furthermore, to reconcile the public Interest. However, many studies still focus on civil liability, and this amendment does not clearly define the behavior of “acquisition of trade secret by wrongful means” in the current law, and may even confuse behaviors and behavioral attributes. In view of this, this article will collect the legislative cases of the United States, Japan, and China, then discuss and analyze the application of the Trade Secrets Act of Taiwan to serve as a reference for the amendment of the relevant provisions of the Trade Secrets Act. In this paper, I claim the crimes of Trade Secrets Infringement are different from pure property crime so that there must be exclusive explainations for the behavior of “acquisition of trade secret by wrongful means”. Therefore, the behavior should be limited to destroy the protection of trade secrets. Besides, the actor must knowingly and intentionally causes the accomplishment of the elements of an offense on the basis of the specific characteristics of the Trade Secrets Infringement. In regard to imprisonment, I think Trade Secrets Act should be also amended because of Criminal Law Article 5 and Article 7.