Trade Secret

The word trade secret refers to knowledge not accessible to the general public and whose author takes advantage of competition and economic advantages. To protect confidentiality, the knowledge owner would have taken the necessary steps to ensure the confidentiality of such information.

Many forms of trade secrets eligible for confidentiality under Thai law include equipment drawings, chemical processes and formulations, manufacturing procedures, and marketing records, such as consumer lists. The law offers lifetime guarantees for a trade secret or as long as the information is kept confidential.

In a dynamic environment, business owners aspire to reduce production costs and increase income rates to achieve economic profit. To do this, significant sums are devoted to research and technology, among other things, to upgrade techniques, methods, and procedures. Companies should ensure that they maintain an acceptable degree of confidentiality over their trade secrets to gain a comparative advantage against their competitor and ensure that the money spent on research and development is not wasted by leaks or taken over by employees who have resigned from the company.

Businesses must proactively try and recognize the intricacies of trade secrets law so that they are in the best place to preserve and defend their valuable properties.

Trade secrets in Thailand are covered by the Trade Secrets Act (2002), which protects against the misappropriation of sensitive knowledge such as recipes, systems, procedures, methods, styles, devices, models, or compilations of materials.

Although the security afforded to trade secrets in Thailand does not require registration, it is necessary to emphasize that certain conditions must be met for a trade secret to be granted legal protection in Thailand.

In Thailand, there are three requirements for qualifying for legal access to a trade secret:

This is also imperative that trade secret owners have taken reasonable steps to protect confidentiality. These necessary steps require non-disclosure and non-usage provisions in all deals covering the use of certain trade secrets. These arrangements can take the form of confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure agreements, job agreements, production agreements, and so on, but are not restricted to. Confidentiality laws may define sensitive details with respect and accuracy. Excessively ambiguous or overly broad definitions can not be enforceable.

In turn, physical security mechanisms (restricted zones, locked storage lists for all forms of material, device access, safes, etc.) will be placed in effect. In the event of a loss of secrecy, the trade secret holders would need to show that the material has been appropriately marked as proprietary and preserved as such. That release is illegal or liable to misappropriation.

If there is a significant likelihood of misuse of secrecy or reverse engineering of proprietary knowledge (e.g., a method or process), trade secret owners would generally recommend bringing a patent claim to secure their exclusivity. Nonetheless, a patent claim would require exposure of the secret and provide a 20-year limited defense.

To trade secret owners, however, it is wise to consider all choices on a case-by-case basis before settling to a specific security policy.

Disclosure, denial, or use of a trade secret without the owner’s permission in a manner contrary to fair trade standards is considered a violation of the law. There is strong evidence that a trade secret breach has been perpetrated or is imminent, the owner of a trade secret affected or likely to be affected may:

In addition to civil penalties, administrative proceedings and maximum sentences of up to one year in prison and a sentence of up to 300,000 Baht are still eligible under Thailand’s Trade Secrets Act. Where there is a secrecy/secrecy arrangement between the trade secret holders and the disclosure, this arrangement may also be followed.

The types of trade secret breaches in Thailand typically include the exposure of knowledge by an employee to a rival, or the use by a former employee of specific knowledge since leaving the company. It is also essential that workplace arrangements contain applicable confidentiality clauses tailored to the particular requirements of the employee’s position (especially in situations where a person needs to access information that is entirely confidential).

Business owners must ensure that they maintain an acceptable degree of confidentiality over their trade secrets to gain a comparative advantage over the business and to provide that money spent on research and development is not wasted by leaks. Companies need to familiarize themselves with trade secret law, so the opportunity to do so is not until a disagreement arises – by then, it is usually still too late. Instead, businesses will try to proactively recognize the intricacies of trade secret law to be in the most influential position to secure and defend their valuable properties.

Trade secrets define confidential knowledge that has not been released to the general public and consumers or open to those familiar with it. To this end, the company holding these secrets has a commercial interest in protecting the confidentiality of these trade secrets. It is necessary that the company holding these secrets take reasonable steps to protect confidentiality.

Business information considers any kind of information and medium, such as data messages or other company knowledge to be trade secrets. It also includes formulas, sequences, compilations or games, systems, procedures, strategies.

In practice, a trade secret dispute arises when an owner of business information takes legal action against his client, ex-employee, or partner for theft of trade secrets. In Thailand, prosecutions for trade secrets are rare, given the importance of trade secrets. Very few trade secret cases focused on figures provided by the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Tribunal.

In some proceedings before the Supreme Court, misinterpretations of the law on trade secrets lead to unfounded legal proceedings. See erroneous. In addition to legal misinterpretations, a common ground for the court’s rejection of the case is that the complainant’s argument uses the weak legal foundations of trade secret protection. The most important element for the claimant of a trade secret situation is to justify a trade secret presence by proving that internal company contracts and procedures secure the data and knowledge. An employer typically asks their employee to enter into a confidentiality or non-compete agreement. Yet a contract alone is not considered an appropriate mechanism to protect a trade secret.

On the other hand, if the holders of a trade secret demonstrate that adequate steps have been taken to preserve the secrecy of a trade secret, the IP&IT tribunal is more inclined to rule.