More than ever, companies are appreciating the value of trade secrets as key IP assets that can exploited to improve their commercial edge. Cross-border R&D collaboration and globalised supply chains mean that a company’s confidential information seldom stays neatly within one jurisdiction. At Dehns, we work with clients in multiple industry sectors (e.g. life sciences, ICT & software, nanomaterials, manufacturing) to define and exploit their trade secrets. Trade secret protection varies in different parts of the world but many governments are proactively updating their legal provisions to ensure that innovators are protected.
We welcome news from China that the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) published their draft Regulations on Trade Secret Protection on 25 April 2025. The draft Regulations helpfully provide a definition and examples of information that can be determined as a trade secret, as well as examples of what constitutes reasonable confidentiality measures. These (draft) Regulations support the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China, which is the primary trade secret law in China. Violations of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law are handled via judicial enforcement and criminal sanctions can apply to acts of trade secret misappropriation. Official statistics from the Chinese government cite 10,000 concluded cases of unfair competition, such as infringement of trade secrets, in 2024.
The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) in China included a trade secrets infringement case in its annual release of “typical” IP cases for 2024. In this exemplary case, a video game tester was found guilty of leaking unreleased game characters. This case sets a precedent for recognising pre-launch game content as trade secrets.
[Source: UK-China Intellectual Property Newsletter April 2025]
When the legal tests for what counts as a trade secret—and for how courts and regulators will police misappropriation—are broadly aligned between the EU Trade Secrets Directive, post-Brexit UK legislation, the US Defend Trade Secrets Act and China’s 2025 proposal, organisations can license, move staff and litigate with far less friction. Investors are also able to gain greater confidence that confidential information will be protected.
We are pleased that the emerging convergence of the EU/UK/USA definitions around “delimited, valuable confidential information safeguarded by reasonable measures” is now being echoed in Beijing’s proposals, signalling an important step towards a level international playing-field for innovative businesses. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) likewise stresses that “adequate” and “effective” national regimes are a prerequisite for fair competition and efficient knowledge flows in the innovation ecosystem.
Yet even perfect harmonisation is no substitute for disciplined internal practice. Most trade-secret failures occur inside an organisation—through casual leaks or departing employees—and these failures cannot be amended in the courtroom. The WIPO Guide devotes its longest chapter to trade secret management precisely because identification, valuation and risk-based protection of secrets are essential.
[Source: WIPO Guide to Trade Secrets and Innovation 2024]
In other words, legal convergence creates the external safety-net, but competitive advantage exploiting the outward-looking benefits of an increasingly harmonised global framework still depends on treating trade secrets as an integral, documented part of the IP portfolio. Trade secrets should be documented alongside patents and other intellectual-property assets, subjected to periodic reviews, and woven into HR policies—a discipline reinforced by China’s 2025 proposal.
At Dehns, we work with our clients to identify where trade secrets fit in with their overall IP strategy. In addition to identifying and recording trade secrets, we also offer a Trade Secret Management platform for our clients.
For more information, contact our Trade Secrets experts for an initial consultation or visit the Trade Secrets page on our website.