单词 | Trade secret |
释义 | 商業秘密 Any information, formula, pattern or device that is used in a person’s business and that gives that person an opportunity to derive an advantage over other persons who do not know or use it. It is different from general skill and knowledge which every employee can take with him when he leaves. An employee must maintain the confidentiality of trade secrets learnt during employment, even after the employee has left that employment: Faccenda Chicken Ltd v Fowler [1987] 1 Ch 117, [1986] 1 All ER 617 (CA). In order to determine whether information is a trade secret or equivalent to a trade secret it is necessary to have regard to (a) the nature of the employment, for example, whether the status of the employee was such that he regularly handled confidential information and recognised it as such or whether the information was only handled by a restricted number of employees; (b) the nature of the information itself; (c) whether the employer had stressed the confidentiality of the information to the employee; (d) whether the relevant information could easily be isolated from other non-confidential information which was part of the same package of information; and (e) whether additional protection should be afforded to an employer where the former employee is not seeking to earn his living by making use of the body of skill, knowledge and experience which he has acquired in the course of his career, but is merely selling to a third party information which he acquired in confidence in the course of his former employment: Faccenda Chicken Ltd v Fowler, supra. Trade secret includes not only secret formulae for the manufacture of products but also in an appropriate case, the names of customers and the goods which they buy. Plans for the development of new products, and for the discontinuance of existing products, are likely to qualify as trade secrets or as confidential information which can be protected: Lansing Linde Ltd v Kerr [1991] 1 All ER 418, 1 WLR 251; Oriental Machinery Ltd v Choi Kin On [2003] 3 HKC 398. See also Confidential information; Restraint of trade. |
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