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Abuse of Dominant Position and Globalization & Protection and Disclosure of Trade Secrets and Know-How

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Abstract

Trade secrets have been a legal concept since innovations made an impact on economy. Even during the Roman period, trade secrets were afforded legal protection. During the industrial revolution, courts introduced the notion of trade secrets. Trade secrets comprise a huge number of different categories of information that can be divided into technical and commercial information, such as the following:

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf A. Arthur Schiller, Trade Secrets and the Roman Law: The Actio Servi Corrupti, 30 Colum. L. Rev. 837 (1930).

  2. 2.

    See in 1817, England, Newbery v James, 35 Eng. Rep. 1011 (Ch. 1817); and in 1837, the United States, Vickery v Welch, 36 Mass. (19 Pick.) 523 (1837).

  3. 3.

    US Report, Section 1.

  4. 4.

    US Report, Section 4.

  5. 5.

    The report is available at https://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-services/publications/assets/economic-impact.pdf.

  6. 6.

    ECtHR (Grand chamber), 11 January 2007, case of Anheuser-Busch Inc. v. Portugal, Appl. nr. 73049/01, ECtHR (2nd Section) 5 July 2005, case of Melnychuk v. Ukraine, Appl. Nr 28743/03 and ECtHR (5th Section), 10 January 2013, case of Ashby Donald and others v. France, Appl. nr. 36769/08 and ECtHR (5th Section) 19 February 2013, case of Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi v. Sweden, Appl nr 40397/12.

  7. 7.

    CJEU, case C-70/10, Scarlet Extended SA v Société belge des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs SCRL (SABAM), ECR 2011 I-11959, pt 40 and ECJ, case C-275/06, Productores de Música de España (Promusicae) v Telefónica de España SAU, ECR 2008 I-271, pt 62.

  8. 8.

    German report, Section 23.2.4.

  9. 9.

    The report is available at http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/iprenforcement/docs/trade-secrets/130711_final-study_en.pdf.

  10. 10.

    The proposal is available at http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/iprenforcement/docs/trade-secrets/131128_proposal_en.pdf.

  11. 11.

    The document is available here http://register.consilium.europa.eu/doc/srv?l=EN&f=ST%209870%202014%20INIT.

  12. 12.

    European Parliament, Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (COM(2013)0813—C7-0431/2013—2013/0402(COD)), available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A8-2015-0199+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN.

  13. 13.

    See European Parliament, Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (COM(2013)0813—C7-0431/2013—2013/0402(COD)).

  14. 14.

    See European Parliament, Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (COM(2013)0813—C7-0431/2013—2013/0402(COD)).

  15. 15.

    European Parliament; Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (COM(2013)0813—C7-0431/2013—2013/0402(COD)), p. 23.

  16. 16.

    This Section 2 is in principle based on the valuable summary of trade secrets and know-how provided in the Belgian report, Section 1.2.

  17. 17.

    Commission Regulation (EU) No 316/2014 of 21 March 2014 on the application of Article 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to categories of technology transfer agreements, OJ L 93, 28 March 2014, pp. 17-23.

  18. 18.

    For similar definition of “know-how”, see: Commission Regulation (EU) No 330/2010 of 20 April 2010 on the application of Article 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to categories of vertical agreements and concerted practices, OJ 2010 L 102, pp. 1-7; Commission Regulation (EC) No 2659/2000 of 29 November 2000 on the application of Article 81(3) of the Treaty to categories of research and development agreements, OJ 2000 L 304, pp. 7-12; Commission Regulation No 1400/2002 of 31 July 2002 on the application of Article 81(3) of the Treaty to categories of vertical agreements and concerted practices in the motor vehicle sector, OJ 2002 L 203, pp. 30-41.

  19. 19.

    OJ 2005 C 325, p. 7–15.

  20. 20.

    CFI, case T-353/94, Postbank v Commission, ECR 1996 II-921.

  21. 21.

    CFI, case T-474/04, Pergan Hilfsstoffe für industrielle Prozesse GmbH v Commission, ECR 2007 II-4225.

  22. 22.

    CFI, case T-353/94, Postbank v Commission, ECR 1996 II-921, pt 87. See also Commission Notice 2005/C 325/07 on the rules for access to the Commission file in cases pursuant to Articles 81 [EC] and 82 [EC], OJ 2005 C 325, p. 7, paras 3.2.1 and 3.2.2.

  23. 23.

    CFI, case T-198/03, Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG v Commission, ECR 2006 II-1429, pt 71; CFI, case T-474/04, Pergan Hilfsstoffe für industrielle Prozesse v Commission, ECR 2007 II-4225, pt 65.

  24. 24.

    The form is available on the Internet on the following address http://www.orgalime.org/publication/model-international-technology-licence-agreement-outside-eueea.

  25. 25.

    German Federal Court of Justice, decision of 10th May 1995, Case No. 1 StR 764/94, 1995 NJW pp. 297 et seq. (BGH Urteil vom 10.5.1995—1 StrR 764/94, NJW 1995, 297); German Federal Court of Justice, decision of 25th November 2010, Case No. Xa ZR 48/09, 2011 GRUR pp. 455 et seq. (BGH Urteil vom 25.11.2010—Xa 48/09, GRUR 2011, 455). See Geman report, Section II.

  26. 26.

    Study on Trade Secrets and Confidential Business Information in the Internal Market Final Study April 2013, page 4. Under for example French, Scottish, Northern Irish and English law there is no statutory definition of trade secrets (the French report, Section 1 and the United Kingdom report, Section 2.1), under French law there is neither any definition in the case law (see French report, Section 1).

  27. 27.

    Brazilian report, Section 1, French report, Section 2.1.4 and Swiss Report Section 3.4.

  28. 28.

    See Austrian Report, Section 18.1, page 1–3, Belgian report, Section 2.4, Bulgarian Report, Section 1.1.2.1, German Report, Section 23.2.5, Hungarian Report, Section 1.3, Luxembourgian Report, Section 2.2.1, Romanian report, Section 1.1, Ukrainian report, Section 1 and Swiss Report, Section 3.2.

  29. 29.

    See Belgian report, Section 2.5.

  30. 30.

    See German report, Section 23.2.7 and Bulgarian report Section 1.1.2.3.

  31. 31.

    See German report, Section 23.2.10.3.

  32. 32.

    See Austrian report, Section 18.1, page 3-5, Belgian report, Section 2.1, Bulgarian report, Section 1.2.2, French report, Section 2.1.1, German report, Section 23.2.10, Hungarian report, Section 1.4, Dutch report, Section 2.1, Luxembourgian Report, Section 2.2.1, Romanian report, Sections 1.2-1.3, Swedish report, Section 30.7, page 10-11, US report, Section B and Swiss Report, Section 3.3. Under UK law, trade secret misappropriation is not penalized, albeit that there have been a legislative proposal proposing criminalization of misappropriation of trade secrets, see UK report Section 6.

  33. 33.

    See Austrian report, Section 18.2.4, page 5-6, Hungarian report, Section 1.4 and Swiss Report, Section 3.6.

  34. 34.

    See Brazilian report, Section 1, French report, Section 2.1.2, Italian Report, Section 1 and Swiss Report, Section 3.5.

  35. 35.

    See French report, Section 2.1.3 and Luxembourgian Report, Section 2.2.1.

  36. 36.

    See German Report, Section 23.2.11 and Ukrainian report, Section 2 (iv).

  37. 37.

    Study on Trade Secrets and Confidential Business Information in the Internal Market Final Study April 2013, page 23. See Austrian report, Section 2.2, Brazilian report, Section 2, Bulgarian report, Section 1.1.2.2., French report, Section 2.1.4, Dutch report, Section 2.1.

  38. 38.

    See for example the Belgian report Section 2.1 through 2.7 and the French report Sections 2.1 through 2.2.

  39. 39.

    See Swedish report, page 3.

  40. 40.

    Study on Trade Secrets and Confidential Business Information in the Internal Market Final Study April 2013, page 10.

  41. 41.

    See Romanian report, Section 28.1.4.2, page 5.

  42. 42.

    See a Statistical Analysis of Trade Secret Litigation in the Federal Court, Aimeling, D.S., March 2010.

  43. 43.

    See Swedish report, Section 30.6, pages 8-9.

  44. 44.

    See Bulgarian report, Section 2.

  45. 45.

    See Luxembourgian report, Section 2.3.

  46. 46.

    See the Belgian Report, Section 5.5.

  47. 47.

    See the Belgian Report, Section 19.5.5, French Report, Section 2.2 and the Swedish Report, Section 30.3, page 9.

  48. 48.

    See Romanian report Section 2.2 and United Kingdom report, Section 3.6.

  49. 49.

    See French report, Section 3.2.2.

  50. 50.

    Belgian Report, Section 3.3.1, French Report, Section 2.4 and Hungarian Report, Section 2.2.

  51. 51.

    Study on Trade Secrets and Parasitic Copying (Look-alikes) MARKT/2010/20/D Hogan Lovells Final Report on Parasitic Copying for the European Commission, page 40.

  52. 52.

    LTC Harms, The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: A Case Book, WIPO 2005, s. 328 ff.

  53. 53.

    See Austrian Report, Section 18.9, page 10, Belgian Report, Section 5.3.2, Brazilian Report, page 4, French Report, Section 3.2.1, German Report, Section 23.2.5.4, Hungarian Report, Section 2.4.2, Italian Report, Section 2, UK report, Section 3.3.

  54. 54.

    Hungarian Report, Section 2.4.2.

  55. 55.

    Swedish Report, Section 30.8.1, page 11 and 12.

  56. 56.

    Austrian Report, Section 18.7, page 9, Belgian Report, Section 4.1, Brazilian Report, Section 20.2, page 2, Bulgarian Report, Section 2.1, German report, Section 23.2.9, Hungarian Report, Section 2.5.

  57. 57.

    Belgian Report, Section 4.2.2.

  58. 58.

    Hungarian Report, Section 2.5.1.

  59. 59.

    Cf Swedish Report, Section 30.9, page 13.

  60. 60.

    Brazilian report, Section 20.4, page 5.

  61. 61.

    UK Report, Section 4.

  62. 62.

    C f for example the Bulgarian Report, Section 11, the Hungarian Report Section 3 and the Italian Report, Section 3.

  63. 63.

    Romanian report, Section 3.

  64. 64.

    Swiss Report, Section 7.2.

  65. 65.

    German Report, Section 23.3.4.

  66. 66.

    The Netherlands Report, Section 5, Bulgarian Report, Section 4.1 and Swiss Report, Section 6.

  67. 67.

    Italian Report, Section 4.

  68. 68.

    Italian Report, Section 4.

  69. 69.

    Brazilian Report, Section 20.5 page 6, Japanese Report, Section 5, Luxembourgian Report, Section 5.

  70. 70.

    Supreme Court, 17 September 1971, Pas., 1972, I, p. 28; Supreme Court, 17 October 2008, Arr. Cass., 2008, p. 2281.

  71. 71.

    G. De Leval, Traité des saisies, 1988, p. 13; P. Van Ommeslaghe, Abus de droit, fraude aux droits des tiers et fraude à la loi, R.C.J.B., 1976, p. 303 ss; Supreme Court, 29 November 1962, Pas., 1963, I, p. 406.

  72. 72.

    As expressly reminded on the European Commission’s website on Trade Secrets, companies cannot invoke their trade secrets with the sole purpose to hide information on matters of public interest, such as public health, the environment or the safety of consumers (http://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/intellectual-property/trade-secrets/index_en.htm).

  73. 73.

    The Netherlands report Section 6.

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  1. Advokatfirman Delphi, Stockholm, Sweden

    Henrik Bengtsson

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  1. Henrik Bengtsson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Këllezi Legal, Geneva, Switzerland

    Pranvera Këllezi

  2. Addleshaw Goddard LLP, London, United Kingdom

    Bruce Kilpatrick

  3. Kobel Avocat Attorney-at-law, Geneva, Switzerland

    Pierre Kobel

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Bengtsson, H. (2017). International Report. In: Këllezi, P., Kilpatrick, B., Kobel, P. (eds) Abuse of Dominant Position and Globalization & Protection and Disclosure of Trade Secrets and Know-How. LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46891-4_17

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