66 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS CHINA • 亚洲法律杂志-中国版 OCTOBER 2023 Founded in 1986, T&C Law Firm is a prestige full-service law firm based in China, who has been established as a leading domestic elite law firm for its outstanding professional services. T&C has built a strong reputation for excellence in the areas such as business, finance and dispute resolution, both within and outside the legal community. T&C currently has five offices nationwide, located in Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Ningbo, which together form an integrated service network. About T&C Law Firm Co., Ltd. was the plaintiff and Guo Pengpeng was the defendant, it was determined that the plaintiff had taken confidentiality measures as it had signed Confidentiality Agreement with the employees, the relevant customer information was stored in the third-party cloud platform and the data, once being generated, could not be revised and was only accessible by individual employees of Financial Department and other relevant departments, and that Guo Pengpeng, the defendant, had used the aforesaid information without evidences to prove that it was not a trade secret. Therefore, the court ruled that the plaintiff’s claim of the trade secret was based on facts and should be adopted. Such special rule for burden of proof had effectively eased the right holder’s burden of proof and resulted a lowered standard for proofing by a right holder as had been clarified in the judicial norm, which was in line with the actual status in the trial of trade secret cases. (ii) Allocation of burden of proof for trade secret infringement It also needs two legislative steps to determine whether or not an act of trade secret infringement is tenable: 1)the plaintiff shall provide the prima facie evidence that the trade secret is infringed upon; 2) the defendant shall proof his absence of the act of trade secret infringement. In the case10 of the dispute over trade secret infringement where Beijing Zhiyuan Sharing Advertising Co., Ltd. was the plaintiff and Zhao Yuanjiao was the defendant, the screenshot used during commercial communications between staffs of the defendant was in line with the sheet of the Rongqiniu, the defendant, which plus the defendant Zhao Yuanjiao’s confession on the whole case in the record of investigation interview, formed a complete evidence chain that could prove that the business information of Rongqiniu involved in the case had been obtained and accessed by Zhiyuan Sharing Corporation. The court did not adopt defendant Zhiyuan Sharing’s defense as it failed to specify the reasonable source or make reasonable explanation of the data screenshot used by its employee Fan Ningning, while the Rongqiniu, the plaintiff, had provided prima facie evidence. IV. Conclusion As trade secret is playing an increasingly important role in domestic and international commercial activities, a multitude of new practical problems have emerged in trade secret-related lawsuits. By analyzing the key points in the practice of trade secret, the paper aims to provide solutions for difficulties in trade secret-related lawsuits from the perspectives of secrecy, confidentiality and allocation of burden of proof, with a purpose to strengthen judicial protection and improve regulations on trade secrets. 10 Beijing Intellectual Property Court (2020) Jing 73 Min Zhong No.2581 Paper of Civil Ruling Chapter 2
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