IP 5 국가에서 영업비밀 보호에 관한 최신 입법동향 및 영업비밀 소송전략에 관한 비교법적 고찰 - 미국, 유럽연합, 일본, 중국 및 우리나라를 중심으로 -

In the digital era the surroundings around the infringement of trade secrets has become easier than in the past. Recently the competitiveness of the Korean companies has been higher, and the trade secrets which they hold are becoming main targets of the foreign companies, and so they are strengthening management and supervision for keeping the trade secrets in order not to be unlawfully misappropriated. This situation is applied to Intellectual Property 5 Countries including Korea, U.S., Europe Union, Japan and China. Therefore, these countries are towards to reinforcing criminal punishment against the misappropriation of trade secrets. In the period between 2015 to 2017 IP 5 countries have revised their laws concerning trade secrets, which confirms that misappropriation of trade secrets has become serious, and trade secrets have not properly been legally protected. This study has focused on what happened relating to the trade secrets in the IP 5 countries, why coincidently in these period etc. This study is very important and necessary in the viewpoint of companies as well as national competitiveness. In particular, the Korea Intellectual Property Office has revised the “Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secrets Protection Act” in 2019, whose purpose is to relax the requirements of trade secrets to be protected according to the Act, to introduce the punitive damages within the 3(three) times of the amount of the damages, to enlarge the types of infringement against trade secrets and to raise the criminal penalties against misappropriation of trade secrets. This study has analysed on the revision of the concerned Acts and practices of the trade secrets in the IP 5 countries with comparative consideration, and in particular, the revised Acts in the foreign countries concerning protection of trade secrets have been comparatively analysed with the Korean Act in concerned.