This article appeared in The Intellectual Property Strategist, an ALM/Law Journal Newsletters publication that provides a practical source of both business and litigation tactics in the fast-changing area of intellectual property law, including litigating IP rights, patent damages, venue and infringement issues, inter partes review, trademarks on social media – and more.

A company’s ability to innovate, exploit, and maintain proprietary trade secrets impacts internal operations and growth, as well as, more crucially, its ability to compete in the marketplace. Recognizing the value of trade secrets, many countries have successively enacted and amended laws to strengthen the protection of corporate trade secrets. In the case of Taiwan, its Trade Secrets Act became effective in 1996 (see, Trade Secrets Act (Taiwan) (promulgated and effective on Jan. 17, 1996, last amended on Jan. 15, 2020)) and was largely modeled after the U.S. Uniform Trade Secrets Act (see, UNIF. TRADE SECRETS ACT (last amended 1985), 14 U.L.A. 1 (2021). As such, it only provided civil liability for trade secrets misappropriation. Compare Taiwan Trade Secrets Act (last amended 2020), with Uniform Trade Secrets Act (last amended 1985) (both incorporating using similar definitions for actionable trade secrets misappropriation, including for “trade secret” and “improper means).