Act on the Protection of Trade Secrets How to protect what defines your business

What is the new Trade Secrets Act all about?

If you ask yourself what defines your business, one of the answers will surely be: a considerable part of your business’ value is derived from the formula and strategies you apply, your customers, calculations etc. – so your trade secrets. Lawmakers share this view and, to provide optimum protection for these, have enacted the Act on the Protection of Trade Secrets (GeschGehG). The aim of the Act is to achieve a uniform minimum level of protection for trade secrets within the European Union and in turn provide greater legal certainty.

What qualifies as a trade secret?

A trade secret is an information

• known only to a limited group of people,
• whose contents are secret and therefore of economic value,
• the confidentiality of which has been documented by the business through appropriate measures, and
• where there is a legitimate interest in the information being kept secret.

Leverage the comprehensive protection possibilities offered by the new Act by addressing the following points at your business. By doing so you will ensure that you can assert the extensive claims made possible under the Act in the event of a breach.

• Systematically collect all information that you consider should be classified as secret and cluster this according to its significance.
• Take appropriate protection measures - physical and legal. These can be access restrictions, authorisation models or confidentiality rules and arrangements.
• Check whether you need to make any changes to how you organise data protection or to any contracts.
• Document the protection measures so that you can provide evidence of these.

With dhpg you have a reliable partner at your side

Our data protection experts have already advised numerous organisations and boast extensive interdisciplinary know-how (in the fields of law, IT and organisation) on developing data protection management systems. One thing is important to us above all though: a sense of proportion. Get in touch if you have any questions. We’ll be happy to answer them and support you during implementation.