企业知识产权保护战略中专利与商业秘密的选择

The Choice Between Patents and Business Secrets in Protection Strategy upon Enterprise Intellectual Property

商业秘密与专利在客体构成、取得途径、法律特征、权利性质、侵权行为的举证责任方面均有不同。创新主体需要综合利用专利和商业秘密的各自特点,从可专利性、技术更新周期、保密难度、商业价值存续时间、侵权诉讼成本等几个因素来进行综合考量。选择合适的知识产权保护战略,才能最大限度保护自身的知识产权权益。相对于专利,商业秘密具有保护范围的广泛性和无限性、权利取得方式的自动性和低排他性、权利存续期限不受限制以及保护手段的严密性等特征。因而在激励和保障创新方面,商业秘密是专利制度的重要补充,二者均为创新激励的重要制度保障。

Business secrets and patents differ in terms of object composition,acquisition methods,legal characteristics,nature of rights,and the burden of proof for infringement.Innovative entities need to comprehensively utilize the unique characteristics of patents and business secrets,considering factors such as patentability,technology update cycles,difficulty of confidentiality,duration of commercial value,and the cost of infringement litigation.By selecting appropriate intellectual property protection strategies,enterprises can maximize the protection of their intellectual property rights and interests.Compared to patents,business secrets have characteristics such as extensive and unlimited scope of protection,automaticity and low exclusivity in rights acquisition,unrestricted duration of rights,and rigorous protection measures.Therefore,in terms of incentivization and safeguarding innovation,business secrets serve as an important complement to the patent system,and both are crucial institutional safeguards for innovation incentives.