The Legislative Yuan passed the "Amendment to the Trial Law of Intellectual Property Cases" for the third time yesterday, changing the crime of violating a secret-keeping order to non-disclosure and increasing criminal liability.

The picture shows Legislative President Yu Xikun hammering the gavel after the third reading of the bill.

(Photographed by reporter Fang Bin)

Intellectual Property Trial Law Amendment Legislative Court for Third Reading

[Reporter Xie Junlin/Taipei Report] In order to protect our country's "National Protector Mountains", the Legislative Yuan passed the "Amendment to the Trial Law of Intellectual Property Cases" for the third reading yesterday. Criminal liability; those who leak business secrets that are protected by orders during the litigation process and belong to the country's core key technology can be imprisoned for up to five years and fined three million yuan.

This regulation also applies if the above-mentioned crimes are committed in foreign countries, China, Hong Kong and Macao.

The crime of violating the order to maintain secrecy is changed to non-complaint and the fine is increased to ten times

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For the crime of violating the order to maintain secrecy, the current regulations are punishable by imprisonment for not more than three years, short-term detention, or a fine of not more than 100,000 yuan, depending on the complaint.

This amendment adopts the theory of non-complaint, and the penalty is fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention, or a fine of not more than one million yuan, and the fine is greatly increased to ten times.

The Amendment also introduces the crime of violating a confidentiality maintenance order 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 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 order to cooperate with the National Security Law promulgated by the President in June last year, the relevant provisions on the crime of national security business secrets, if foreign countries, China, Hong Kong, Macao, and foreign hostile forces steal the business secrets of the country’s core and key technologies, this amendment also clearly stipulates that Such cases should be heard by the second-instance Intellectual Property Court of the IQ Court, and the protection of business secrets has been upgraded to a hierarchical protection system for national security.

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 more than 100 million yuan because of the expert’s opinion, it was only afterwards 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 impartial and objective, the new law not only prohibits people who have reasons to avoid being investigators, but also clearly stipulates that investigators should disclose matters.

In addition, expert witnesses shall also disclose matters under 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.