JONES DAY PRESENTS®: Trade Secret Enforcement in China

Early in 2020, the United States and China agreed to Phase 1 of a trade agreement that touched on many aspects of trade secret enforcement in both countries. Jones Day partner Haifeng Huang talks about the measures available to trade secret owners seeking remedies in Chinese courts, including enforcement mechanisms, where relief can be sought through civil, administrative, and criminal channels.

Read the full transcript below:

Haifeng Huang:

China and the US have just entered into a phase one trade agreement, which touch upon many aspects of trade secret enforcement in both jurisdictions, including US and China. So under this trade agreement, China will adopt a number of different measures on the enforced military secret in China involving multinationals, as well as domestic parties.

Haifeng Huang:

China has lowered the threshold for the criminal enforcement against trade secret infringement in China. And China also has started to shift the burden of proof to the defendant. If the plaintiff can produce circumstantial evidence to show the indication of trade secret infringement.

Haifeng Huang:

There's some other measures which can also be useful such as removing the requirement for the evidence or syndication from the US and also allowing the witness and experts to testify before the court.

Haifeng Huang:

So all this matters can be very useful to the owners of trade secrets to seek remedies before the Chinese court. Enforcement mechanisms for the trade secret matters can be a little different from other jurisdictions in terms of China.

Haifeng Huang:

China has provided three different channels, civil, administrative, and criminal. All these channels will be available to trade-secret owners. So this options will be up to the owners of trade-secrets to choose and decide what could be the best to maximize the benefit out of all these channels.

To view all of our JONES DAY PRESENTS® Trade Secret videos, please click on the playlist below.