Protection
of undisclosed information
Article 39
of Section 7 Part II of the TRIPS agreement elaborates on the protections of
trade secrets.
A Trade
Secret or undisclosed information is any information that has been
intentionally treated as secret and is capable of commercial application with
an economic interest. It protects information that confers a competitive
advantage to those who possess such information, provided such information is
not readily available with or discernible by the competitors. They include
technical data, internal processes, methodologies, survey methods used by
professional pollsters, recipes, a new invention for which a patent application
has not yet been filed, list of customers, process of manufacture, techniques,
formulae, drawings, training material, source code, etc. Trade Secrets can be
used to protect valuable "know how" that gives an enterprise a competitive
advantage over its competitors.
The
Agreement provides that natural and legal persons shall have the possibility of
preventing information lawfully within their control from being disclosed to,
acquired by or used by others without their consent in a manner contrary to
honest commercial practices. Further, parties are required to protect against
unfair commercial uses, undisclosed or other data obtained as a condition of
approving the marketing of pharmaceutical or of agricultural chemical products.
There is no
specific legislation regulating the protection of trade secrets. India follows
common law approach of protection based on contract laws.
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