By its 1291 law, the Republic of Venice moved all its glassblowers to the nearby island of Murano, ostensibly to protect Venice’s wooden buildings from catching fire from the trade’s furnaces. But a subsequent 1295 law preventing them from leaving Murano confirmed the authorities’ real concern: to prevent the glassblowers from disclosing the trade secrets of their lucrative business outside the republic.

More than 700 years later, similar concerns about protecting trade secrets in the European Union resulted in Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 8, 2016, on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure, (the trade secrets directive). A directive imposes a binding obligation on member states to implement its provisions, as opposed to a regulation, which has direct binding effect throughout the European Union. Article 19 sets out the deadline for implementation of the trade secrets directive into the law of each member state; the deadline is no later than June 9, 2018.

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