- Title
- Addressing the Criminal Liability for Trade Secrets Misuse under the Australian Law: Is the Current Legal Framework Adequate to Protect the Interests of Trade Secrets Owners?
- Creator
- Nashkova, Suzana
- Relation
- IIC International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law Vol. 55, p. 1281-1315
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40319-024-01490-4
- Publisher
- Springer
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- The emergence and dominance of knowledge-based economies have heightened the importance of trade secrets as a “currency” for attaining competitiveness in the market and driving innovation. Yet espousing policies to govern trade secret protection, especially in the criminal law sphere, was not something on which legislative and regulatory policymakers traditionally focused. Recent legislative incentives at a global level have caused the tide to shift and, after decades of being somewhat neglected, the questions pertaining to criminal liability for trade secret misuse are finally gaining attention. The Australian response to recent initiatives ensued in 2018 with the enactment of the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act 2018 (Cth) (“EFI Act”) which introduced the first statutory provisions dedicated to criminalisation of state-sponsored theft (economic espionage) of trade secrets. This Act, however, does not provide a comprehensive legal framework to address criminal liability for trade secret misuse, as it leaves outside the scope of its regulation the criminalisation of the theft of trade secrets by individuals for their own benefit. This paper analyses the adequacy of the Australian legal regime concerning criminal liability for trade secret misuse. The analysis is informed by a comparison of the legal provisions of the Australian trade secret regime with that adopted in the United States (“U.S.”) which currently offers a comprehensive framework of protection and criminalises economic espionage as well as the theft of trade secrets. This comparative analysis serves to determine: first, whether the “one way” avenue of statutory protection under Australian law suffices to protect the interests of the owners of trade secrets; and, second, whether a potential reform of the regime designed to include dedicated statutory provisions to criminalise the theft of trade secrets, as is the case in the U.S., could potentially afford a more adequate protection of the interests of trade secret owners.
- Subject
- trade secrets; Espionage and Foreign Interference Act; Economic Espionage Act; DTSA; TRIPS Agreement; SDG 10; Sustainable Development Goal
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1514030
- Identifier
- uon:56805
- Identifier
- ISSN:0018-9855
- Rights
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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