산업기술 해외유출 보호에 관한 비교법적 연구-「산업기술보호법」상 산업기술의 부정한 수단에 의한 유출을 중심으로-

Recently, there is fierce competition among countries to gain technological advantage in high-tech industries such as semiconductors and secondary batteries. In particular, since technology outflow by Chinese companies becomes more serious and technology thefts overseas through online channels are on the rise, stabilizing the supply chain of major industrial technologies is emerging as a critical issue. Because securing global technological supremacy has a significant impact on national security, it is very important to revise and supplement laws and regulations to appropriately protect major industrial technologies, including national core technologies. To the extent that the divulgence of our industrial technologies abroad undermines the competitiveness of domestic industries and threatens national security, it is necessary to refer to the legislative efforts of major countries to develop more effective laws to prevent the divulgence of industrial technologies abroad. Most major countries are strengthening the protection of industrial technologies by expanding the criminal requirements for the illegal divulgence of industrial technologies to intentional criminals as opposed to purposeful criminals. South Korea has strict punishment systems comparable to those in the US, the UK, and Japan, which have very strict statutory sentences. In this regard, the Korean Supreme Court’s Sentencing Committee has recently strengthened the standards for sentencing technology theft offenders significantly. The theft of industrial technologies or national core technologies can cause irreparable damages not only to the owner or holder of the technology in question, but also to national interests and security. Accordingly, in addition to criminal punishment provisions, it is necessary to specifically legislate effective measures to prevent technology theft in lawsuits between private parties. The US, Germany, France, and Taiwan have whistleblower immunity provisions in their legislation that exempt whistleblowers from legal liability. The US has a civil procedure in which the court can order the seizure of the defendant’s property as the case may require in a civil lawsuit. Furthermore, the US, the UK, and Japan specify that the relevant laws are applied extraterritorially even when trade secrets are leaked overseas. It is necessary to pay particular attention to the UK’s legislation because under South Korea’s current law, there is no basis for comprehensively preventing the divulgence of information of great importance to national security.