商业秘密民事法律保护研究

【作者】 汤茂仁；

【导师】 眭鸿明；

【作者基本信息】 南京师范大学 ， 民商法学， 2013， 博士

【摘要】 本文在对中外知识产权法典、国际公约以及大量判例、学术著作和期刊论文进行研究的基础上,结合我国商业秘密审判实践,详细研究了商业秘密民事法律保护的相关问题,并就我国商业秘密纠纷处理中一些难点和热点问题提出了解决路径。全文共五章,内容涉及商业秘密民事法律保护概述、商业秘密认定、侵害商业秘密的认定、侵害商业秘密的法律责任、商业秘密民事法律保护的限度。第一章商业秘密民事法律保护概述。主要阐述了商业秘密的界定、权利归属、民事法律保护的理论基础。笔者认为,我国应当参照TRIPS协议的规定对商业秘密作出界定,取消实用性要件,并对企业向国家有关主管机关提交的实验数据提供保护。商业秘密外延应不限于技术秘密和经营秘密,还应包括其他一些符合商业秘密认定标准的管理经验类信息等。商业秘密的归属应当坚持创新原则、投资原则、契约自由原则,因职务行为而完成的商业秘密归属于单位,同时允许单位与职工约定归属。单位应当就职务创造支付奖励和报酬。委托完成的商业秘密依据约定确定归属,没有约定的归开发者。商业秘密民事法律保护的理论基础在于其为无形财产。商业秘密立法价值不仅是激励研究和创新、促进技术传播和使用,还在于维护公平诚信的竞争秩序。这些理论决定了我国应当制定专门的商业秘密法的模式来为商业秘密提供多维保护。第二章商业秘密的认定标准。认定商业秘密除了传统的秘密性、价值性、保密措施标准外,还应当包括新颖性标准。新颖性标准要求商业秘密必须具有一定的创造性。判断新颖性、秘密性、价值性的成立,要求有关信息区别于公知信息且公众难于从公开渠道直接取得,权利人为此也付出了一定劳动等。“不为公众所知悉”属于一消极事实,权利人举证较难,可以降低其证明标准。商业秘密具有地域性特征,在一个国家或地区公开的信息,不影响在其他国家或地区因符合商业秘密的特征而成为商业秘密。保密措施包括权利人主观上有保密意愿、客观上采取了保密措施两方面。保密措施只要合理就可以,不能要求成本过于昂贵。如果一个有正常心智和法律理念的理性人,已经意识到权利人的有关信息是保密的,权利人的保密措施已经被感知,则该保密措施就应该是合理的。第三章侵害商业秘密的认定。侵害商业秘密的具体行为包括以不正当手段获取他人的商业秘密、不当披露或使用他人的商业秘密、违反保密义务或保密要求披露或使用他人的商业秘密、第三人因过错不当获取、披露或使用他人商业秘密。笔者认为,凡是以违背诚实信用原则和公认的商业道德的手段获取、披露、使用他人商业秘密的行为均属于侵害商业秘密的不正当手段。对“使用”的理解不应当局限于文义,还包括行为人虽作修改但其技术内容实质上是来源于他人商业秘密的情形。保密义务不仅限明示,还有默示义务存在。当事人违反保密义务将产生违约责任和侵权责任的竞合,有时也存在侵害债权行为。第三人因过错不当获取、披露或使用他人商业秘密的,与违反保密义务或采取不正当手段的他人构成共同侵权,承担连带责任。过错是商业秘密侵权认定的主观要件,这有别于其他知识产权侵权行为。笔者认为,我国应当建立商业秘密善意取得制度。为解决商业秘密诉讼中的举证难问题,“接触+相似—合法来源”以及“相似(源于原告秘密的极大可能性)-合法来源”可用以推定行为人采取了不正当手段获取或使用了权利人的商业秘密。同时,我国不应当采用美国法中的不可避免披露原则。处理客户名单纠纷必须正确平衡与协调好客户名单持有人与雇员、新雇主之间的利益冲突。客户信息在其特定化,为公众难于取得,且系开发人作了劳动投入的,可以作为商业秘密受到保护。客户基于对原单位雇员的特定信赖而自愿与职工本人或职工新单位发生交易的,适用客户信赖例外规则,雇员不构成侵权。第四章侵害商业秘密的法律责任。侵害商业秘密的民事法律责任适用于一般财产受到损害的民事责任。笔者认为,在我国针对商业秘密侵权行为可以申请发布临时禁令。其条件包括申请人实胜诉的极大可能性；如不采取临时禁令,被申请人的行为将会给申请人造成难以弥补的损害；申请人要提供相应的担保；下发禁令并不损害社会公共利益。停止侵权责任应当设定时间和范围,以被告正常开发商业秘密所需时间为准。停止侵权这种责任也可因公共利益等因素而排除适用,以责令行为人支付许可费等方式解决。确定侵权赔偿额的原则为补偿性为主惩罚性为辅原则、创新原则和比例原则。可以参照专利侵权的规定以权利人损失、侵权人获利、许可费的倍数和法定赔偿四种方法确定赔偿额。惩罚性赔偿在我国有适用的情形存在。第五章商业秘密民事法律保护的限度。反向工程、公共利益、国家利益、劳动者生存权,以及诉讼权益可以适度限制商业秘密权利的行使。要对竞业限制予以适当限制以维护劳动者的择业自由,职工可以自由使用剩留知识。当事人不能因为证据涉及商业秘密而不予提交对方质证,法庭要采取适当措施保护权利人的商业秘密,如责令签订保密协议、限制参加质证的人员范围等。更多还原

【Abstract】 Based on the study of the Intellectual Property Rights laws of China and foreign countries, international conventions, cases, works, papers, and periodicals, and connected to the trade secrets trial practice, this thesis studies several topics on the civil protection of trade secrets in detail, especially setting forth the understanding and resolution of questions during handling the trade secrets conflicts. The whole thesis includes five chapters including the theoretic foundation of the civil protection of trade secrets, the determination of the trade secrets, the determination of the trade secrets infringement, the legal liability of the trade secrets infringements, and the limitation of the civil protection of trade secrets.The first chapter is about the theoretic foundation of the civil protection of trade secrets. It studies the definition of trade secrets, their ownerships, and the theoretic foundation of the civil protection of trade secrets. This author states that we should define the trade secrets according to the TRIPS of WTO, cancel the condition of "the Practical Utility", and should protect the experiments data given to the government by the enterprises. As to the extension of trade secrets, the thesis says it includes not only the technology information and business information, but also other information about management and experience. The thesis also thinks that we should stick to three principles of Creation, Investment, and Contract Freedom to determine the ownerships of trade secrets. The trade secrets belong to the employers when the creations’duties are to create trade secrets. Meanwhile the ownership of trade secrets is allowed to negotiate between the employers and employees. The employers should pay extra salaries to the creators and rewarded them. If the employers ask others to create, the ownership is also allowed to negotiate. If not, they belong to the creator. The author also thinks that the trade secrets should be regarded as the intangible assets. Moreover, the thesis states that the trade secret law should set up the value of stimulating the research and creation, promoting the transmission and use of technologies, and maintain the competition order of fair and trust. Based on these theories, the author sets forth the suggestion that it is necessary to lay down a special trade secrets law to protect the secrets.The second chapter is about the criteria to determinate the trade secrets. Apart from Confidentiality, Value Characteristic, and Ways of Maintaining the Confidentiality, Novelty is also the criteria to determine the trade secrets. The requirement of Novelty is the creativity. To judge Confidentiality, Value Characteristic, and Novelty, the information is required to differ from other public information, be obtained difficultly, and that the owner has spent a lot of labor to create it. It is difficult for the rights holder to provide the evidences to determine the fact of being "Unknown to the Public" because it is the negative fact. Therefore, the prove criteria can be lowered down. The trade secrets show the territoriality. So, the information is known to the public in one nations or area while it is the secret in other nations or areas only if it meets the criteria of trade secrets. Two contents of the Ways of Maintaining the Confidentiality are the wills of keeping the secret and the measures of keeping the secret. It is required that the measures are reasonable and high cost is not the requirement. When the measures are known to someone, they are reasonable.The third chapter is about the determination of trade secrets infringements. There are four behaviors of trade secrets infringements, such as obtaining trade secrets by unjust ways, unjust disclosing or using trade secrets, violating the obligation or requirement of preserving confidential to disclose or use trade secrets, the third part obtaining, disclosing or using trade secrets because of the fault. The author thinks that it is the behavior of obtaining trade secrets by unjust ways if the infringer violates good faith and the commercial morals known to the public. The definition of using trade secrets is not only about the use itself but also the information mainly from others’trade secret. The author also says that the obligations of keeping the confidential include the ostensive ones and implied ones. Contract liabilities and infringement liabilities happen together while these obligations are violated. Sometimes it happens that the creditor’s rights are infringed. When the third part obtains, discloses or uses trade secrets because of the fault, he should take the liabilities together with the part violating the obligation of keeping confidential. The subjective fault is the condition of determination of trade secrets infringements, which is different from the other IPR infringement. Moreover, the author sets forth the rule of obtaining trade secrets in good faith after studying the rules and regulations of obtaining the property. Meanwhile, in order to deal with the difficulties of providing evidences, the thesis analyzes two presumption ways to determinate trade secrets infringements including "Contacting+Similarity-Legal Origin" and "Similarity (coming from the plaintiff with maximum probability)-Legal Origin", and finally thinks we should not use the rules of inevitably disclosing trade secrets of America. It is necessary to balance the interests among the holder of the customer lists, the employee, and the new employer. The customer list can be regarded as trade secrets when it is specified, difficult to obtain, and is the result of investing time, money, and labor by employer. Finally, when the customer make deals with the employee or his new employer because of the customer’s willing selection, the employee doesn’t infringe the ex-employer’s trade secrets.The fourth chapter is about legal liability as the result of trade secrets infringements. The liabilities taken by the trade secret infringer is the same as the ones taken by the common property infringer. When the infringement happens, the victim can apply the injunction after four conditions are met. The four conditions include winning the future litigation probably, suffering the damage difficult to be compensated, guarantee, and not damaging the public interests. The author also thinks that stopping infringement should be in the limited time and positions. The time is the one that the defendant creates the trade secrets. However, on some occasions, this liability, instead of license fees, can not be implemented because of the public interests. The principals of determining the compensation amount are Compensatory with Punishment, Creativity, and Portion. Finally, just like the ways of patent infringement compensation, there are four compensation ways to exterminating the compensation amount including the damage of the rights holder, the profits of the infringer, license fees, and the Statutory Compensation. The author also thinks that punitive compensation is also applied in Chinese judicial practice.The fifth chapter is about the limitation of the civil protection of trade secrets. The thesis studies the limitation circumstances of the Reversing Engineering, public interests, national interests, surviving rights of labors, rights of the litigation. During the study, the author thinks that proper restraint should be given to the agreement about prohibiting operating competition and the employees can use their remainder knowledge. The parties should provide the evidences related to trade secrets to be inquired in the hearing and the court should take measures to preserve the confidential of theirs.更多还原