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All appeals are dismissed.
Reasons
The grounds of appeal are examined.
1.(a)
The term "trade secret" under Article 2 subparagraph 2 of the former Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act (amended by Act No. 11963, Jul. 30, 2013; hereinafter referred to as the "former Unfair Competition Prevention Act") means a production method, sale method, and other technical or managerial information useful for business activities, which is not widely known and has independent economic value, and are maintained in secret by considerable effort.
In this context, “not known to the public” refers to a situation in which it is recognizable that information is maintained and managed as objectively confidential, such as where it is not known to many and unspecified persons, such as that it is not known to the public through a publication, etc. (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2006Do7916, Jul. 9, 2009) and “where it is maintained in secret by considerable effort” means a mark or notification that may be perceived as confidential, and where it is possible to recognize that information is maintained and managed as objectively confidential, such as restricting access to the information or imposing a duty to maintain confidentiality on persons who have access to the information, or persons who have access to the information.
(See Supreme Court Decisions 2008Do3435 Decided July 10, 2008; 2017Do13791 Decided October 31, 2019, etc. (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decisions 2008Do3435, Jul. 10, 200
In order to establish a crime of occupational breach of trust where an employee of a company divulges data to a competitor or ships such data without permission for the purpose of using them for his own interest, such data does not constitute a trade secret.
Even if it is not disclosed to many and unspecified persons, it cannot be generally obtained without going through the holder, and the holder of the data is a considerable time, effort and cost for the acquisition or development of the data, and the competitor can benefit from competition through the use of the data.