China’s Top Court Issues Model Case on Protecting Trade Secrets in Biotech
Published 16 April 2026
Xia Yu
On 10 April 2026, the Supreme People’s Court of China (“SPC”) published as a model case its final civil judgment rendered on 30 December 2024 in the trade secret infringement dispute between Ai Mou Diagnostics Ltd. (“Ai Mou”) of New Zealand and Wuhan Bo Mou Biotech Co. (“Bo Mou”) and Mr. Sun of China. This publication aims to systematically unify the adjudication standards in trade secret infringement cases. The case involves the separation and purification technology of natural protease 3 (PR3) in the biopharmaceutical field. It not only clarifies the legal boundary between the protection of foreign-related trade secrets and employee inventions, but also achieves multiple breakthroughs in adjudicative rules.
Key Takeaways
Parallel claims allowed: A right holder may simultaneously pursue a service invention claim (patent ownership) and a trade secret infringement claim – the two are not contradictory. “Holistic solution” standard for secrecy: Even if individual steps or parameters are publicly known, their specific combination, sequence and synergistic effect can still qualify as a trade secret if not generally known or easily obtainable. Low threshold for confidentiality measures: A signed confidentiality agreement (defining “confidential information” broadly) plus basic physical access control (e.g., keycard/lab restrictions) is sufficient – no need to list each secret point. Filing a patent = disclosure + use: Applying for a patent using someone else’s trade secret itself constitutes both “disclosure” and “use” under anti-unfair competition law, regardless of whether the claims use ranges or generic terms. Burden shifting: After the right holder shows (i) confidentiality measures, (ii) access, and (iii) substantial similarity, the alleged infringer must prove independent development or public knowledge with complete, verifiable R&D records.
Basic Case Information
Ai Mou (established in 1996) possesses a production method for separating and purifying PR3 from azurophil granules of human blood neutrophils. The technical information is embodied in standard operating procedures and has high commercial value. In 2011, Ai Mou entered into an Employee Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Assignment Agreement with its former employee Mr. Sun, stipulating confidentiality obligations with respect to the relevant technical information and adopted confidentiality measures such as access control management for the laboratory and other premises. During his employment at Ai Mou, Mr. Sun served as production manager and accessed and mastered the trade secret in question.
Mr. Sun left Ai Mou in December 2017. Before his departure, his close relatives had already participated in the establishment of Bo Mou (incorporated in October 2016). After leaving Ai Mou, in April 2018 Mr. Sun became an 80% shareholder and legal representative of Bo Mou. In May 2018, Bo Mou filed a patent application with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (“CNIPA”) entitled “Method for separating and purifying natural protease 3 from azurophil granules of human blood neutrophils” (“patent-in-suit”), naming Mr. Sun and his spouse Kang (who worked as a biochemist at Ai Mou from 2015 to 2017) as the inventors.
Ai Mou discovered that the technical solution of the patent-in-suit was substantially the same as its trade secret, and that Bo Mou’s website and its distributor’s website indicated that Bo Mou had actually produced, promoted and sold PR3 products. On 25 March 2022, Ai Mou filed the present lawsuit with the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court of Hubei Province (“first-instance court”), alleging that Bo Mou and Mr. Sun had jointly infringed its trade secret. On 29 May 2023, the first-instance court found infringement and ordered Bo Mou and Mr. Sun to cease the infringement and jointly pay compensation for economic losses of RMB 1.8 million (approximately US$ 264,000). Both parties appealed. On 12 December 2023, the SPC docketed the case.
During the second-instance proceedings (16-18 March 2024), Bo Mou still participated in the 21st China International Laboratory Medicine and Transfusion Instrumentation Expo in Chongqing and distributed a product brochure containing PR3 product information to attendees. On 30 December 2024, the SPC rendered its final judgment, dismissing the appeals and affirming the first-instance judgment.
Related Proceedings:
1. On 13 April 2021, the patent-in-suit was granted and announced. On 7 April 2021, Ai Mou filed another lawsuit (“Case No. 437”) with the first-instance court, claiming that the patent-in-suit was a service invention completed within one year after Mr. Sun left Ai Mou, seeking an order transferring the patent right to Ai Mou, naming Bo Mou as defendant and Mr. Sun as third party. During the proceedings of that case, the patent-in-suit was granted, and the first-instance court ruled that the patent right belonged to Ai Mou. Bo Mou appealed to the SPC.
2. On 23 May 2024, the CNIPA issued Decision No. 568383 declaring the patent-in-suit wholly invalid. On 23 August 2024, Ai Mou filed a separate administrative lawsuit against the invalidation decision with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. The court docketed the case on 26 August 2024, and the case is currently pending first-instance trial. It should be noted that the patent invalidation does not affect the finding of trade secret infringement in this case – trade secret protection and patent validity are independent of each other, and an infringer cannot avoid liability under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of China on the ground that the patent has been invalidated.
Trade Secret Infringement and Patent Ownership May Be Asserted Concurrently
The most unique procedural background of this case is that Ai Mou filed two related lawsuits simultaneously: Case No. 437 concerning patent ownership (claiming the patent-in-suit was a service invention completed within one year after Mr. Sun left Ai Mou, seeking transfer of ownership to Ai Mou) and the present case concerning trade secret infringement. May a right holder assert both “service invention” and “trade secret infringement”? Are the two contradictory?
The SPC clearly answered that they are not contradictory. The service invention system addresses the “ownership of the invention-creation”; the trade secret system addresses the “unlawful acquisition, disclosure and use of information”. A right holder may assert both remedies based on different factual aspects and legal bases. The legal bases and claims in the two cases are different, and the assertions in the two cases are related but not contradictory.
This adjudicative rule unifies the standard for the relationship between the right holder’s title and patent ownership disputes in “former employee trade secret misappropriation” cases, clarifying that the two legal regimes can coexist, and the right holder need not make an either-or choice between “service invention” and “trade secret”. At the same time, the rule lowers the evidentiary threshold for the right holder to prove that “it is the right holder”: the right holder need only provide carrier evidence showing that it possesses and uses the relevant technical information (e.g., standard operating procedures, production records), supplemented by the employee’s acknowledgment of access, to make a prima facie showing; if the alleged infringer wishes to deny the right holder’s entitlement, it bears the burden of producing contrary evidence.
“Holistic Technical Solution” Standard for Trade Secret
Regarding the key issue of “whether the information in question constitutes a trade secret”, the SPC rendered systematic and groundbreaking determinations. The SPC first reiterated the three elements of a trade secret: not being publicly known, having commercial value, and having been subject to reasonable confidentiality measures. Regarding the most critical element of “not being publicly known”, the court established the “holistic technical solution” standard.
Specifically: The six secret points asserted by Ai Mou are not isolated steps or parameters, but a complete production method constituted by “specific operational steps, sequence, and buffer components and ratios”. Although individual chromatography steps (e.g., cation exchange chromatography) or common reagents (e.g., sodium acetate, NaCl, Lubrol) were already disclosed in the prior art, the court expressly stated: even if some elements of the technical information are already in the public domain, as long as the holistic technical solution formed by the combination of multiple steps and parameters is not generally known in the industry and cannot be easily obtained by others without some effort, the holistic solution should still be found “not publicly known”.
In the comparison methodology, the court compared the six secret points with the claims and specification examples of the patent-in-suit one by one, finding that the order of operational steps was identical, the buffer components were the same, and the parameter ranges recited in the patent (e.g., 20-50mM sodium acetate) completely covered the specific values in Ai Mou’s trade secret (e.g., 25mM). The numerous documents submitted by Bo Mou and Mr. Sun only proved scattered elements of public knowledge, none of which disclosed the identical combination of steps, sequence, and specific parameter ratios as the trade secret. The court accordingly found that the patented technical solution was an “adaptational use” of the trade secret, not independent research and development.
Additionally, the court found that Ai Mou had adopted “reasonable confidentiality measures” by entering into a specific confidentiality agreement and implementing access control management; the high value and market scarcity of the PR3 product also demonstrated its “commercial value”. In summary, the information in question fully met the statutory elements of a trade secret.
Reinforcing Effect of Second-Instance Expert Opinion: Mr. Sun applied for a person with specialized knowledge to testify, asserting that the purification method in question was a conventional technique in the field. However, the expert also admitted that the selection of each step and parameter requires repeated experimentation, and his laboratory had not succeeded in obtaining a high-purity PR3 product after nearly three years of research. Based on this, the SPC found that even if scattered steps were disclosed in public literature, forming a complete solution capable of actual production still requires substantial creative effort, thereby further reinforcing the conclusion that the holistic solution was not publicly known.
This determination completely rejects the infringer’s common “disaggregation” defense – i.e., breaking the trade secret into individual publicly known elements to negate its secrecy. The SPC clarified that the core of trade secret protection is the combination, sequence and synergistic effect of information, not isolated technical points. This significantly enhances the level of trade secret protection, unifies the adjudication standard, and substantially reduces the right holder’s evidentiary burden: the right holder need only show that the holistic solution is not directly obtainable from the public domain, without having to prove that every detail is non-public.
“Contractual Undertaking + Physical Access Control” Sufficient to Establish Confidentiality Measures
The SPC established a relatively flexible and pragmatic standard for determining confidentiality measures. The court found that Ai Mou had taken “reasonable confidentiality measures”: on one hand, Ai Mou entered into a specific Employee Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Assignment Agreement with Mr. Sun, which expressly provided that Mr. Sun, both during and after employment, was obligated to keep confidential “confidential information” (including R&D information, technology, products, etc.), and Mr. Sun was fully aware of this; on the other hand, Ai Mou installed an access control system for the laboratory and the building housing the R&D offices where the standard operating procedures were kept, implementing physical control. The court accordingly found that the right holder had a clear intent to maintain confidentiality, specific confidentiality requirements, and had adopted reasonable measures combining contractual undertakings and physical control, thereby satisfying the statutory requirement of “reasonable confidentiality measures”.
Notably, the court expressly rejected the infringer’s defense that “the confidentiality agreement did not list the secret points item by item”, stating that confidentiality measures need not exhaustively enumerate specific technical information.
This standard significantly lowers the right holder’s burden of proving the “degree of correspondence between confidentiality measures and the trade secret”. The signal sent by the court is: if the right holder has a clear intent to maintain confidentiality, defines the scope of confidential information in a confidentiality agreement in general terms, and combines that with basic physical or electronic access restrictions, confidentiality measures are sufficiently established. This unifies the previously overly stringent review standards adopted by various courts regarding confidentiality measures, avoids denying confidentiality measures solely because the right holder failed to “mark each secret point”, and is more consistent with the reality of corporate technology management.
The Act of Filing a Patent Application Itself Constitutes “Disclosure and Use” of a Trade Secret
This case clearly holds that the act of filing a patent application using another’s trade secret itself constitutes both “disclosure” and “use” of the trade secret.
The SPC pointed out: first, the act of filing a patent application and making the technical solution publicly available causes the trade secret to enter the public domain, allowing the public to access it, which directly constitutes the “disclosure” of a trade secret prohibited by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. Second, by filing the patent application, Bo Mou not only obtained patent exclusivity but also used it to enhance its corporate reputation, attract business cooperation, and pave the way for subsequent production and sales of products – this constitutes “use” of the trade secret to obtain commercial benefits.
The court specifically emphasized that even if the patent claims use “upper-level concepts” or “parameter ranges” (e.g., writing specific concentration values as a range), if the substantive technical solution is the same as the right holder’s secret points, the finding of infringement is not affected. In this case, each step of the patent-in-suit used the substantive technical solution and buffer components of the trade secret, and the order of steps was completely identical, sufficient to find infringement.
Corroboration of Continuing Infringement in Second Instance: After the first-instance judgment found infringement and during the second-instance proceedings, Bo Mou continued to participate in industry exhibitions, promoting PR3 products and labelling them as “products under development”. The SPC took this as an important fact showing that Bo Mou “continued to commit infringing acts” and had clear malicious intent, and accordingly upheld the cease-and-desist order.
The significance of this adjudicative rule lies in completely closing the common loophole of “legalizing illegally obtained technology through patent applications”. In the past, infringers often argued that “filing a patent application is merely disclosing information, not actually producing or selling, and does not constitute use”. or that “the patent claims have been rewritten and are not completely identical to the original trade secret”. The SPC in this case expressly rejected these defenses, characterized the act of “filing a patent application” itself as an independent infringing act, and established the comparison standard that “substantially identical technical solution constitutes infringement”. This greatly strengthens the protection of trade secret right holders and creates a powerful legal deterrent against former employees and competitors who attempt to “launder” trade secrets.
Conclusion
This case is a landmark decision in which the Intellectual Property Court of the SPC systematically responded to three long-standing practical difficulties in the field of trade secret protection: what is a true secret? what counts as confidentiality? does filing a patent application constitute infringement? This case clearly sends a signal: the Chinese judicial system’s protection of trade secrets is moving from “formal review” to “substantive review”, and from “isolated protection” to “systematic relief”. For all enterprises that rely on core technology, this judgment provides important reference value.
Key Takeaways
Parallel claims allowed: A right holder may simultaneously pursue a service invention claim (patent ownership) and a trade secret infringement claim – the two are not contradictory. “Holistic solution” standard for secrecy: Even if individual steps or parameters are publicly known, their specific combination, sequence and synergistic effect can still qualify as a trade secret if not generally known or easily obtainable. Low threshold for confidentiality measures: A signed confidentiality agreement (defining “confidential information” broadly) plus basic physical access control (e.g., keycard/lab restrictions) is sufficient – no need to list each secret point. Filing a patent = disclosure + use: Applying for a patent using someone else’s trade secret itself constitutes both “disclosure” and “use” under anti-unfair competition law, regardless of whether the claims use ranges or generic terms. Burden shifting: After the right holder shows (i) confidentiality measures, (ii) access, and (iii) substantial similarity, the alleged infringer must prove independent development or public knowledge with complete, verifiable R&D records.
Basic Case Information
Ai Mou (established in 1996) possesses a production method for separating and purifying PR3 from azurophil granules of human blood neutrophils. The technical information is embodied in standard operating procedures and has high commercial value. In 2011, Ai Mou entered into an Employee Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Assignment Agreement with its former employee Mr. Sun, stipulating confidentiality obligations with respect to the relevant technical information and adopted confidentiality measures such as access control management for the laboratory and other premises. During his employment at Ai Mou, Mr. Sun served as production manager and accessed and mastered the trade secret in question.
Mr. Sun left Ai Mou in December 2017. Before his departure, his close relatives had already participated in the establishment of Bo Mou (incorporated in October 2016). After leaving Ai Mou, in April 2018 Mr. Sun became an 80% shareholder and legal representative of Bo Mou. In May 2018, Bo Mou filed a patent application with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (“CNIPA”) entitled “Method for separating and purifying natural protease 3 from azurophil granules of human blood neutrophils” (“patent-in-suit”), naming Mr. Sun and his spouse Kang (who worked as a biochemist at Ai Mou from 2015 to 2017) as the inventors.
Ai Mou discovered that the technical solution of the patent-in-suit was substantially the same as its trade secret, and that Bo Mou’s website and its distributor’s website indicated that Bo Mou had actually produced, promoted and sold PR3 products. On 25 March 2022, Ai Mou filed the present lawsuit with the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court of Hubei Province (“first-instance court”), alleging that Bo Mou and Mr. Sun had jointly infringed its trade secret. On 29 May 2023, the first-instance court found infringement and ordered Bo Mou and Mr. Sun to cease the infringement and jointly pay compensation for economic losses of RMB 1.8 million (approximately US$ 264,000). Both parties appealed. On 12 December 2023, the SPC docketed the case.
During the second-instance proceedings (16-18 March 2024), Bo Mou still participated in the 21st China International Laboratory Medicine and Transfusion Instrumentation Expo in Chongqing and distributed a product brochure containing PR3 product information to attendees. On 30 December 2024, the SPC rendered its final judgment, dismissing the appeals and affirming the first-instance judgment.
Related Proceedings:
1. On 13 April 2021, the patent-in-suit was granted and announced. On 7 April 2021, Ai Mou filed another lawsuit (“Case No. 437”) with the first-instance court, claiming that the patent-in-suit was a service invention completed within one year after Mr. Sun left Ai Mou, seeking an order transferring the patent right to Ai Mou, naming Bo Mou as defendant and Mr. Sun as third party. During the proceedings of that case, the patent-in-suit was granted, and the first-instance court ruled that the patent right belonged to Ai Mou. Bo Mou appealed to the SPC.
2. On 23 May 2024, the CNIPA issued Decision No. 568383 declaring the patent-in-suit wholly invalid. On 23 August 2024, Ai Mou filed a separate administrative lawsuit against the invalidation decision with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. The court docketed the case on 26 August 2024, and the case is currently pending first-instance trial. It should be noted that the patent invalidation does not affect the finding of trade secret infringement in this case – trade secret protection and patent validity are independent of each other, and an infringer cannot avoid liability under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of China on the ground that the patent has been invalidated.
Trade Secret Infringement and Patent Ownership May Be Asserted Concurrently
The most unique procedural background of this case is that Ai Mou filed two related lawsuits simultaneously: Case No. 437 concerning patent ownership (claiming the patent-in-suit was a service invention completed within one year after Mr. Sun left Ai Mou, seeking transfer of ownership to Ai Mou) and the present case concerning trade secret infringement. May a right holder assert both “service invention” and “trade secret infringement”? Are the two contradictory?
The SPC clearly answered that they are not contradictory. The service invention system addresses the “ownership of the invention-creation”; the trade secret system addresses the “unlawful acquisition, disclosure and use of information”. A right holder may assert both remedies based on different factual aspects and legal bases. The legal bases and claims in the two cases are different, and the assertions in the two cases are related but not contradictory.
This adjudicative rule unifies the standard for the relationship between the right holder’s title and patent ownership disputes in “former employee trade secret misappropriation” cases, clarifying that the two legal regimes can coexist, and the right holder need not make an either-or choice between “service invention” and “trade secret”. At the same time, the rule lowers the evidentiary threshold for the right holder to prove that “it is the right holder”: the right holder need only provide carrier evidence showing that it possesses and uses the relevant technical information (e.g., standard operating procedures, production records), supplemented by the employee’s acknowledgment of access, to make a prima facie showing; if the alleged infringer wishes to deny the right holder’s entitlement, it bears the burden of producing contrary evidence.
“Holistic Technical Solution” Standard for Trade Secret
Regarding the key issue of “whether the information in question constitutes a trade secret”, the SPC rendered systematic and groundbreaking determinations. The SPC first reiterated the three elements of a trade secret: not being publicly known, having commercial value, and having been subject to reasonable confidentiality measures. Regarding the most critical element of “not being publicly known”, the court established the “holistic technical solution” standard.
Specifically: The six secret points asserted by Ai Mou are not isolated steps or parameters, but a complete production method constituted by “specific operational steps, sequence, and buffer components and ratios”. Although individual chromatography steps (e.g., cation exchange chromatography) or common reagents (e.g., sodium acetate, NaCl, Lubrol) were already disclosed in the prior art, the court expressly stated: even if some elements of the technical information are already in the public domain, as long as the holistic technical solution formed by the combination of multiple steps and parameters is not generally known in the industry and cannot be easily obtained by others without some effort, the holistic solution should still be found “not publicly known”.
In the comparison methodology, the court compared the six secret points with the claims and specification examples of the patent-in-suit one by one, finding that the order of operational steps was identical, the buffer components were the same, and the parameter ranges recited in the patent (e.g., 20-50mM sodium acetate) completely covered the specific values in Ai Mou’s trade secret (e.g., 25mM). The numerous documents submitted by Bo Mou and Mr. Sun only proved scattered elements of public knowledge, none of which disclosed the identical combination of steps, sequence, and specific parameter ratios as the trade secret. The court accordingly found that the patented technical solution was an “adaptational use” of the trade secret, not independent research and development.
Additionally, the court found that Ai Mou had adopted “reasonable confidentiality measures” by entering into a specific confidentiality agreement and implementing access control management; the high value and market scarcity of the PR3 product also demonstrated its “commercial value”. In summary, the information in question fully met the statutory elements of a trade secret.
Reinforcing Effect of Second-Instance Expert Opinion: Mr. Sun applied for a person with specialized knowledge to testify, asserting that the purification method in question was a conventional technique in the field. However, the expert also admitted that the selection of each step and parameter requires repeated experimentation, and his laboratory had not succeeded in obtaining a high-purity PR3 product after nearly three years of research. Based on this, the SPC found that even if scattered steps were disclosed in public literature, forming a complete solution capable of actual production still requires substantial creative effort, thereby further reinforcing the conclusion that the holistic solution was not publicly known.
This determination completely rejects the infringer’s common “disaggregation” defense – i.e., breaking the trade secret into individual publicly known elements to negate its secrecy. The SPC clarified that the core of trade secret protection is the combination, sequence and synergistic effect of information, not isolated technical points. This significantly enhances the level of trade secret protection, unifies the adjudication standard, and substantially reduces the right holder’s evidentiary burden: the right holder need only show that the holistic solution is not directly obtainable from the public domain, without having to prove that every detail is non-public.
“Contractual Undertaking + Physical Access Control” Sufficient to Establish Confidentiality Measures
The SPC established a relatively flexible and pragmatic standard for determining confidentiality measures. The court found that Ai Mou had taken “reasonable confidentiality measures”: on one hand, Ai Mou entered into a specific Employee Confidentiality and Intellectual Property Assignment Agreement with Mr. Sun, which expressly provided that Mr. Sun, both during and after employment, was obligated to keep confidential “confidential information” (including R&D information, technology, products, etc.), and Mr. Sun was fully aware of this; on the other hand, Ai Mou installed an access control system for the laboratory and the building housing the R&D offices where the standard operating procedures were kept, implementing physical control. The court accordingly found that the right holder had a clear intent to maintain confidentiality, specific confidentiality requirements, and had adopted reasonable measures combining contractual undertakings and physical control, thereby satisfying the statutory requirement of “reasonable confidentiality measures”.
Notably, the court expressly rejected the infringer’s defense that “the confidentiality agreement did not list the secret points item by item”, stating that confidentiality measures need not exhaustively enumerate specific technical information.
This standard significantly lowers the right holder’s burden of proving the “degree of correspondence between confidentiality measures and the trade secret”. The signal sent by the court is: if the right holder has a clear intent to maintain confidentiality, defines the scope of confidential information in a confidentiality agreement in general terms, and combines that with basic physical or electronic access restrictions, confidentiality measures are sufficiently established. This unifies the previously overly stringent review standards adopted by various courts regarding confidentiality measures, avoids denying confidentiality measures solely because the right holder failed to “mark each secret point”, and is more consistent with the reality of corporate technology management.
The Act of Filing a Patent Application Itself Constitutes “Disclosure and Use” of a Trade Secret
This case clearly holds that the act of filing a patent application using another’s trade secret itself constitutes both “disclosure” and “use” of the trade secret.
The SPC pointed out: first, the act of filing a patent application and making the technical solution publicly available causes the trade secret to enter the public domain, allowing the public to access it, which directly constitutes the “disclosure” of a trade secret prohibited by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. Second, by filing the patent application, Bo Mou not only obtained patent exclusivity but also used it to enhance its corporate reputation, attract business cooperation, and pave the way for subsequent production and sales of products – this constitutes “use” of the trade secret to obtain commercial benefits.
The court specifically emphasized that even if the patent claims use “upper-level concepts” or “parameter ranges” (e.g., writing specific concentration values as a range), if the substantive technical solution is the same as the right holder’s secret points, the finding of infringement is not affected. In this case, each step of the patent-in-suit used the substantive technical solution and buffer components of the trade secret, and the order of steps was completely identical, sufficient to find infringement.
Corroboration of Continuing Infringement in Second Instance: After the first-instance judgment found infringement and during the second-instance proceedings, Bo Mou continued to participate in industry exhibitions, promoting PR3 products and labelling them as “products under development”. The SPC took this as an important fact showing that Bo Mou “continued to commit infringing acts” and had clear malicious intent, and accordingly upheld the cease-and-desist order.
The significance of this adjudicative rule lies in completely closing the common loophole of “legalizing illegally obtained technology through patent applications”. In the past, infringers often argued that “filing a patent application is merely disclosing information, not actually producing or selling, and does not constitute use”. or that “the patent claims have been rewritten and are not completely identical to the original trade secret”. The SPC in this case expressly rejected these defenses, characterized the act of “filing a patent application” itself as an independent infringing act, and established the comparison standard that “substantially identical technical solution constitutes infringement”. This greatly strengthens the protection of trade secret right holders and creates a powerful legal deterrent against former employees and competitors who attempt to “launder” trade secrets.
Conclusion
This case is a landmark decision in which the Intellectual Property Court of the SPC systematically responded to three long-standing practical difficulties in the field of trade secret protection: what is a true secret? what counts as confidentiality? does filing a patent application constitute infringement? This case clearly sends a signal: the Chinese judicial system’s protection of trade secrets is moving from “formal review” to “substantive review”, and from “isolated protection” to “systematic relief”. For all enterprises that rely on core technology, this judgment provides important reference value.