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Learn more about Trade Secret
If economic actors can file patents, trademarks, designs, and models, or even benefit from copyright protection, the intellectual property rights granted by Thai law are sometimes insufficient to protect certain information of your company, and several measures must be taken to protect your company. Trade secrets are protected by the regulations of the Trade Secrets Act of B.E. (2002) 2545. A trade secret issue usually arises when a company holding the trade secret takes legal action to misuse trade secrets against its employee, ex-employee, or partner. With Themis Partner, benefit from the assistance of a lawyer specializing in the protection of your company’s data and information. Our partner lawyers can protect you on the next steps to pursue.
Table of contents
What is a trade secret in Thailand?
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.
Why protect your company's trade secrets?
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.
What are the rules of trade secrecy?
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.
How to get protected in Thailand?
In Thailand, there are three requirements for qualifying for legal access to a trade secret:
โค The details shall not be open to the public or shall not yet be available to individuals ordinarily acquainted with the details |
โค The details shall have a trading interest arising from its secrecy |
โค The knowledge manager would have taken reasonable steps to protect confidentiality |