LED industry talent flow and trade secret protection

In the rapid development of LEDs, the number of cases involving LED trade secret cases is also increasing. The protection of LED corporate trade secrets is becoming more and more important today. The leakage of corporate trade secrets, especially the leakage of technical patents and drawings, is undoubtedly fatal to the LED companies.

LED trade secret is an intangible asset that embodies the labor, wisdom and input of the company. It can be said that each LED company will have more or less trade secrets. However, some companies do not protect their technology and business information that they have invested in human, material and financial resources. It is easily obtained or leaked by employees or partners, so that their competitive advantage no longer exists. Whoever has more advanced trade secrets in the era of knowledge economy will be in an advantage in market competition. Therefore, more and more LED entrepreneurs recognize the importance of trade secrets. In particular, employees often change jobs, senior managers, technicians frequently flow, leading to leaks, etc., due to lack of understanding of business secret legal knowledge. The trade secret protection skills are not allowed to be grasped, resulting in the leakage of technical business information that has been painstakingly possessed, and the lawsuit cannot win the case.

How to deal with the talent flow and trade secret protection of the LED industry? On June 10, at the 6th LED Industry Theme Summit Forum jointly hosted by Gaogong LED and Guangzhou Haizhu District Government, Deng Hao, director of the Intellectual Property Professional Committee of the Guangdong Lawyers Association, who was the sole lawyer of the forum, used Numerous classic legal cases and how to analyze the legal relationship between the LED industry talent flow and trade secrets from the LED professional perspective.

The so-called trade secrets are technical information and business information that are not known to the public, can bring economic benefits to the right holder, have practicality, and take confidential measures by the right holder.

Deng Wei believes that employees are the biggest threat to trade secrets, mainly characterized by the disclosure of trade secrets, self-employment competition with the company and job-hopping for competitors.

According to the existing law, trade secret protection and restrictions on employees may not disclose any trade secrets of the company, may not compete with the former employer, and may not conduct commercial transactions with the customers of the former employer, even if the customer takes the initiative and does not induce or actively attract customers to leave. Original employer.

Since trade secrets rely on their owners to take strict confidentiality measures, they can enjoy exclusive rights. Therefore, it cannot be protected by law (referring to the Patent Law), and it can only rely on natural protection, that is, using confidential means; Contract protection can be divided into internal and external aspects. Internally, the company enters into a technical confidentiality contract with internal employees, stipulating that employees should not disclose the business secrets of the enterprise during their employment or after leaving their posts; externally, when a technology transfer contract is concluded with the other party, the recipient of the technology is prescribed by the confidentiality clause. The obligation to disclose commercial secrets to third parties is not allowed. Any breach of the confidentiality clause of the contract will be subject to sanctions under the relevant contract law.

Under this circumstance, enterprises should consciously and selectively introduce traditional methods of intellectual property protection into the protection of trade secrets while applying the means of protection of trade secrets.