산업기술보호 관련 법체계 정비에 관한 소고-「산업기술유출방지 및 보호에 관한 법률」을 중심으로-

The national economy of the Republic of Korea has been developed rapidly around the industrial technology, and the government has striven to prevent the outflow of national core technology and industrial technology for Korean enterprises to predominate in global competition. The representative laws to protect the current industry technology include “Industrial Technology Drain Prevention Act” and “Trade Secret Act” as major laws, and there are various other laws such as “Invention Promotion Act”, “Big⋅Small & Medium Mutual Developing Cooperation Promotion Act”, “Patent Act”, and “Criminal Law” etc. However, recently there has been significant changes in relevant legal environment. For examples, unconstitutional decision by the Constitutional Court on the obscure definition provision of “Industrial Technology” and the legislation notice of the revised bill including a transfer the Industrial Technology Protection Committee, the Prime Minister affiliated organization to the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy. In addition, a recent revise of Trade Secret Act extends the scope of the subject matters of trade secret protection to include personal business and non-profit organizations. The Small and Medium Business Administration prepares a bill related to small and medium business’ technology protection. These changes may induce inefficiencies and redundancy in enforcement of laws, and need the control tower for reconciliation. This paper examines the recent changes in the legal environment surrounding industrial technology protection, and also the necessity of a framework act on technology protection. It also suggests the regulatory legal nature of the Industrial Technology Drain Prevention Act moves to the supportive nature for technology protection; the scope of the subject matters of the law should extend to include general technology protection; and it also need to reduce the subject matters of punishment, which applies to the National Core Technology only. Finally, it emphasizes the role of the Committee as a control tower for technology protection along with enactment of the Technology Protection Basic Act.