“魔术表演”的商业秘密保护范围与局限研究

Research on the Scope and Limitation of Trade Secret Protection of “Magic Show”

基于以隐藏魔术原理创造魔术效果的特殊性质和必须通过表演转化商业价值的营利模式,在实践中以著作权法或专利权法保护“魔术表演”的知识产权都存在明显的争议或难题,因此相关权利人常常选择以反不正当竞争法对“魔术表演”中包含的魔术原理以商业秘密进行保护。魔术原理构成商业秘密需要满足一定的条件,尤其是其权利主体不能与相关著作权人混同,在秘密性上也应关照魔术行业的特殊性。同时,以商业秘密保护魔术原理也有明显的局限,主要体现在“反向工程”的实施难度较低、侵权认定困难以及与实现经济效益的冲突。因此,相关权利人如果寻求对魔术原理的商业秘密保护,应采取相对更周密、完善的保密措施,并协调以商业秘密保护与实现经济效益的必然冲突。

Based on the special nature of creating magic effects by hiding magic principles and the profit model of transforming commercial value through performance, there are obvious controversies or difficulties in protecting the intellectual property rights of “magic show” by copyright law or patent law in practice, so the relevant right holders often choose to protect the magic principles contained in “magic performance” with trade secrets by anti-unfair competition law. Magic prin-ciple constitutes a trade secret needs to meet certain conditions;especially its right subject can’t be mixed with the relevant copyright holders, and it also should take care of the special nature of the magic industry in terms of the secrecy. At the same time, to protect the magic principle of trade secrets also has obvious limitations, mainly in the low difficulty of the implementation of “reverse engineering”, the difficulty of infringement and the conflicts in realizing economic benefits. Therefore, if the relevant right holder seeks to protect the magic principle of trade secrets, they should take relatively more careful and perfect confidentiality measures, and coordinate the inevitable conflict between the protection of trade secrets and the realization of economic benefits.