On Thursday 21 February 2019, the Trade Secrets Act was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). This law reinforces the patrimonial and confidential nature of all the sensitive information for the company at a competitive level which is not protected by some form of registry protection (patents, trademarks or designs). With this provision, our system complies with the mandate of EU Directive 2016/943 on Trade Secrets and outlines in a much clearer way what can be considered confidential, how this character is instrumentalised internally and externally, as well as the mechanisms of its legal protection.
Until now, this asset of vital importance for business competitiveness was subject to scattered, if not deficit treatment. In many cases, tutelage actions entailed a serious risk of disclosure of secrecy in court and this generated a deterrent effect on those affected by a violation of this type. The new regulation reinforces, in judicial headquarters and beyond the conclusion of the procedure, the access that third parties may have to that information and at the same time that it endows our Intellectual Property system with a complementary instrument of high value in the prosecution of copying or infringement of rights.