The prosecutor's appeal is dismissed.

1. The gist of the grounds for appeal is as follows: (a) the victim MBA Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the “victim company”) acquired the manufacturing technology, such as circuit drawings, PCB (KIKO drawings), parts requirements list, work methods, etc. (hereinafter “S10”) from HBC with respect to HBC (hereinafter “S10”); (b) the court below erred by misapprehending the fact that the victim company did not maintain and manage S10 production technology as confidential, and thereby acquitted the Defendants. (c) The court below erred by misapprehending the fact that the victim company did not maintain and manage S10 production technology as confidential. (d) The court below found the Defendants not guilty.

2. The term "trade secret" under Article 2 subparagraph 2 of the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act means any production method, sale method, and other technical or managerial information useful for business activities, which are not known to the public and has an independent economic value, and kept secret by considerable effort, and the term "in this context, it is recognizable that the information is kept secret by considerable effort, such as making indications or notifications that the information is confidential, imposing restrictions on access to the information or on access methods, imposing a duty to keep secret on the person who has access to the information, etc.

(see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2008Da44542, Dec. 23, 2010). First of all, we examine whether S10 production technology has been maintained and managed as trade secrets, and the following circumstances acknowledged by evidence duly admitted and investigated by the lower court, namely, ① the victim company internally designates a custodian of S10 production technology or establishes a security device or security management regulation.