EU Council Agrees Approach For New Legal Framework On Trade Secrets

The European Council today agreed on an approach for establishing a new legal framework for protecting trade secrets.

According to a release, the new framework “aims at making it easier for national courts to deal with the misappropriation of confidential business information, remove the trade secret infringing products from the market and make it easier for victims to receive compensation for illegal actions.”

The official Council document, 9870/14, is available here.

The EU release is available here [pdf].

According to the release, under the agreement, the new framework would include the following main features:
Under the agreement, the new framework would include the following main features:

“– a minimum harmonisation of the different civil law regimes, whilst allowing member states to apply stricter rules;
– the establishment of common principles, definitions and safeguards, in line with international agreements, as well as the measures, procedures and remedies that should be made available for the purpose of civil law redress;
– a limitation period of six years for claims or bringing actions before courts;
– the preservation of confidentiality in the course of legal proceedings, while ensuring that the rights of the parties involved in a trade secret ligation case are not undermined;
– the establishment of a favourable regime to employees in what concerns their liability for damages in case of violation of a trade secret if acting without intent.”

The document now goes to the European Parliament, according to sources.