영업비밀의 비밀관리성에 관한 개정 동향의 비판적 고찰

In the Unfair Competition Prevention And Trade Secret Protection Act, “secrecy management” has become the most important issue in the determination of trade secret infringement. By the way, in the amended Unfair Competition Prevention And Trade Secret Protection Act of 2019, the existing phrase “the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy” was revised to “the subject of managing secrecy”. On the other hand, in the amended Unfair Competition Prevention And Trade Secret Protection Act of 2015, “considerable efforts” was revised to “reasonable efforts”. The purpose of the above revision trend was to solve the problem on “secrecy management” like the latter because the recognition of secrecy management was very strict in the courts and thus there were many judgments that denied the trade secret. In other words, the Korean Intellectual Property Office have tried to secure the effectiveness of the recognition of trade secret infringement acts by revision to lower the criterion determining secrecy management like the above. However, in light of the foreign legislation and interpretation trend and the trend of judgments reflecting the above trend in the courts of Korea, it is doubtful whether the courts of Korea will be able to provide clear guidelines to lower the strict criterion determining secrecy management like the purpose of the above revision trend, since clear distinction was not established between “reasonable efforts” and “considerable efforts” under the old law unlike the purpose of legislation in the existing interpretation. In conclusion, it is necessary to pay attention to the trend of the future judgments considering the purpose of the legislation of the amended Unfair Competition Prevention And Trade Secret Protection Act of 2019 and the court needs to establish a clear judgment criterion about how to implement the legislative purpose of the above revision trend.