《中美第一阶段经贸协议》对我国商业秘密保护的影响——走向信息产权?

The Implication of the China-US Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement on the Protection of Trade Secrets in China

《中美第一阶段经贸协议》和美欧近期的立法动向均表明,商业秘密保护正在从反不正当竞争转向信息产权化路径,并浮现为数字经济时代的新型信息产权。本文以《协议》文本为线索,分析这一变化趋势的背景、原因和具体表现。如果上述论断成立,中美经济贸易协议对我国未来的创新与竞争环境将具有深远影响,其影响方向将取决于我国能否准确解读中美经济贸易协议的弦外之音和未尽之言,以及是否掌握信息产权的体系化平衡之道。

The Sino-US Economic and Trade Agreement along with recent legislative trends in both the United States and Europe shows that the paradigm of trade secrets protection is shifting from an anti-unfair competition means to a property approach,which simultaneously signals the emergence of trade secrets as a new type of information property rights in a digital economy era.Building off the text of the Agreement,this article uncovers the background and causes of this paradigm shifting and identifies some of its specific manifestations.Under the article’s hypothesis,the Agreement will have a profound implication for China’s innovation and competition environment in the future.Meanwhile,the direction of its impacts depends on whether the policy makers can ably grasp the overtones and the things left unsaid of the Agreement,and whether they master the policy tools to systematically balance information property rights.