Trade Secret: A Significant Legal Institution in Business and its Legal Regulation across Selected European Countries (Including Case Law)
Radka Kopčová
JUDr., PhD. LL.M., Assistant Professor at the Pan-European University in Bratislava (Slovakia). ORCID: 0009-0000-0930-4543
Trade secrets represent one of the most valuable intangible assets of modern companies, ensuring a competitive advantage in the market. This article contains an analysis of the legal regulation of trade secrets and the legal mechanisms for their protection in the context of international, European and national law. The author focuses on the very definition of trade secret, or other terms with similar meaning. Special attention is paid to the implementation of Directive (EU) 2016/943 (the ‘Trade Secrets Directive’), which brought uniform rules for the protection of confidential information from its unauthorized acquisition, use or disclosure. This article contains a comparison of the law of selected countries (especially EU Member States) with a different regime of trade secret legislation. In this context, the author also presents selected interesting court decisions.
Keywords: Trade secret; Know-how; Directive (EU) 2016/943 (the ‘Trade Secrets Directive’); TRIPS; Trade secret legislation; IP Law; Commercial Law; Unfair competition; Case law
