Trade secret law, intellectual property, and innovation: Theoretical, empirical, and Asian perspectives

This research explores the theory and practice of trade secret law in Japan, Korea, and the United States from comparative, law and economics, and empirical perspectives. Specifically, it examines how the imported trade secret law has developed and interacted with different legal, economic, technological, and sociocultural realities in the two Asian countries. Japan and Korea adopted trade secret law in the early 1990s. However, trade secret protection did not have a considerable impact in either Japan or Korea at this early stage of implementation because of several factors, including the role of local substitutes for trade secret law and defects in procedural law supporting the substantive trade secret law. On the other hand, the protracted economic recession in Japan after the burst of the economic bubble and the Asian financial crisis in Korea in the late 1990s created a new business cycle in which trade secret law has been gaining importance in these societies. The new business cycle has encouraged governments in the two Asian countries to recognize that trade secret law is an important mechanism for dealing with corporate control of valuable information and the management of human capital in pursuing continuing economic growth and protecting the stature of their countries in the international economy. In recent years, accordingly, significant changes have occurred in the law regarding trade secrets in the two Asian countries. However, the recent expansion of trade secret law in Japan and Korea has raised another legal and policy problem, which is tension between those who demand strong trade secret protection for employers and those who demand a Constitutional right for employees. And the debates continue in Japan and Korea for optimal trade secret protection in these societies.

Name thesis:degree_name

J.S.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Law

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Hyun-Soo

Contributors dc:contributor

• Smith, Bruce
• Ulen, Thomas S.
• Garoupa, Nuno
• Kesan, Jay P.

• trade secret law
• intellectual property law in Asia, legal transplant
• trade secrets in Korea and Japan
• law and development
• postemployment restraints

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2010 Hyun-Soo Kim

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/18387

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F18387