The Legislative Yuan will pass the third reading today (12th) on the "Draft Amendment to the Trial Law of Intellectual Property Cases", which will change the crime of violating the order of keeping secrets to non-disclosure and increase the criminal liability.

(Photographed by reporter Fang Bin)

[Reporter Xie Junlin/Taipei Report] In order to protect our country's "Sacred Mountains for Protecting the Nation", the Legislative Yuan will pass the "Draft Amendment to the Trial Law of Intellectual Property Cases" for the third reading today (12th). On the other hand, the criminal responsibility should be increased; if the business secrets protected by orders during the litigation process and which belong to the country's core key technology are leaked, the maximum penalty can be 5 years of imprisonment and a fine of 3 million yuan.

In addition, this provision also applies to the above-mentioned crimes committed in China, Hong Kong and Macau.

For the crime of violating the order of keeping secrets, the current regulations are punishable by fixed-term imprisonment of not more than 3 years, short-term detention, or a fine of not more than 100,000 yuan, and a complaint must be made.

This amendment adopts the theory of non-complaint, and the penalty is a fixed-term imprisonment of less than 3 years, criminal detention, or a fine of less than 1 million yuan, and the fine is greatly increased by 10 times.

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The new law also introduces the crime of violating secret-keeping orders abroad, which is clearly defined in foreign countries, China, Hong Kong and Macau, regardless of whether the law of the place where the crime has punishment provisions, the above-mentioned provisions are also applicable to strengthen the protection of business secrets.

Considering the highly technical and professional nature of trade secret criminal cases, and in order to avoid the continuous expansion of the victim’s trade secret infringement, this amendment will also change the “first-instance criminal cases, including incidental civil litigation cases” of the crime of general trade secret infringement to the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court The first-instance intellectual property court hears in order to achieve the goal of professional, appropriate and speedy trial.

In addition, in order to cooperate with the National Security Law promulgated by President Tsai Ing-wen in June last year, the relevant provisions on the crime of national security business secrets, if foreign countries, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and foreign hostile forces steal the business secrets of the country's core key technologies, this amendment will also It is clearly stipulated that such cases should be heard by the second-instance Intellectual Property Court of the Intellectual Property Court, and the protection of trade secrets has been upgraded to a hierarchical protection system for national security.

The Judicial Yuan pointed out that since the National Security Law raised criminal cases of infringement of national security business secrets to the jurisdiction of the second instance, and it is planned to be implemented as late as August this year, the Smart Trial Law must cooperate with the revision of the law, otherwise the trial procedures of the above cases will not be able to meet the planned schedule implement.

In addition to the above-mentioned relevant provisions to strengthen the protection of business secrets, this amendment also expands the participation of experts in trials, and adds provisions such as the verification system and the expert witness system.

In view of the fact that a judge once revoked a multi-national company’s fine of hundreds of millions of dollars because of the expert’s opinion, it was later discovered that the expert had an interest relationship with the client, but it was a done deal.

In order to avoid such situations, this amendment also gives investigators and expert witnesses the obligation to disclose, making professional opinions more objective and fair.

In order to make investigators and expert witnesses more fair and objective, the new law not only prohibits people who have reasons to avoid being investigators, but also stipulates that investigators should disclose matters.

In addition, expert witnesses should also disclose matters after applying the provisions of the Commercial Matters Trial Act.

If the verifier violates the obligation of disclosure (including non-disclosure and untruthful disclosure), or if the disclosure may affect the verifier’s objectivity or impartiality, the court may revoke the ruling ex officio to protect the parties and the third party. Three rights.