Theoretical and Legal Principles of Commercial Secrets Protection from Industrial Espionage

The scientific article is devoted to the study of the concept of «commercial secret», which acts as a process or tool for constant using in business operations; and it is an important component for the economic system functioning. First of all, these are technical and technological secrets of production. A n effective enterprise can protect against loosing commercial secrecy, for instance, by adoption non-disclosure contracts or taking security measures against commercial partners. In particular, small and medium-sized enterprises possibly will not be aware of the risks as their activities grow, and should form an effective commercial secrecy management program and take actions to defend the commercial secrets from illegal appropriation, which is manifested in the form of direct theft or industrial espionage. The purpose of the scientific article is to carry out a theoretical and legal analysis of the commercial secrecy protection from industrial espionage in Ukraine. As a result of the study, the system of legal support of commercial secrecy in Ukraine is characterized, the main goals of industrial spies that are encroached on commercial secrets are defined, the peculiarities of protecting commercial secrets from industrial espionage are investigated, and accordingly, the conclusions are formulated and the recommendations to improve the system commercial secrecy are made. In this article, the emphasis is made on the definition of commercial secrecy as intellectual property, which is the object of encroachment of industrial spies. At the same time, it is concluded that the misuse of such information (by persons, except the commercial secret owner) is considered as an unfair competition and can be protected in court. Depending on the legal system, the protection of commercial secrecy is incorporated into the general concept of protection against unfair competition or provided by by specific provisions on trust information protection in civil or criminal law.