The Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation on Oct. 29 publicized a list of 11 milestone events of trade secret protection in Guangdong province of 2020. The events come in four categories.

Category 1: Representative judicial and administrative cases of trade secrets.

Category 2: New administrative means such as policies, rules and regulations on trade secret protection initiated by the government.

Category 3: New legislation and law enforcement measures on trade secret protection initiated by the government.

Category 4: New practices of trade secret protection initiated by companies.

6 representative cases are listed under the first category.

Case 1:

Docket No.: 203, second instance (终), criminal case (刑), (2020) Jieyang Intermediate People’s Court of Guangdong Province (粤52)

Defendant Liu, an employee of the rival company of plaintiff Mingyang Smart Energy Group Limited., unlawfully acquired the proprietary information about wind turbines developed by the plaintiff. Liu was sentenced to 3 years in prison and a fine of 1 million yuan ($156,000).

Case 2:

Docket No.: 457, second instance (终), civil case (民), (2016) IP Court of the Guangdong High People’s Court (粤知)

Defendants XU and XIAO, former employees of the plaintiffs, unlawfully used the source code of a popular online game Di Wang Ba Ye (《帝王霸业》) developed by the plaintiffs to make profit.

Case 3:

6 defendants Wu, Zhang, Jiang, Wang, Yu, and Li, former employees of plaintiff Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., unlawfully used the plaintiff’s proprietary information to make profit.

Case 4:

Defendants Huang and Wang, former employees of plaintiff ZTE Corporation, disclosed the plaintiff’s proprietary information about 5G technology to make profit. The two defendants were sentenced to 3 years in prison and a fine of 150,000 yuan ($23,000). This is China’s first criminal case about 5G technology.

Case 5:

Defendants Xie and Shi, an employee of plaintiff Midea Group, disclosed the plaintiff’s proprietary information to Zhang to make profit.

Case 6:

Defendant Shenzhen-based company WeeeMake Co., Ltd. unlawfully used WeWork’s customer data to make profit.

Nanshan district of Shenzhen city was officially designated as a center for trade secret protection as a result of a joint effort of Guangdong province, Shenzhen city, and Nanshan district in 2020. This was listed as a milestone event under the second category.

The amendment to the Guangdong Province Regulations on Trade Secret Protection in 2020 was listed as a milestone event under the third category.