COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Implementation Plan Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure
Date: 2013-11-28
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: access to information, industrial espionage, industrial property, innovation, judicial proceedings, new technology, research and development, trade information













EUR-Lex - 52013SC0493 - EN











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52013SC0493

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Implementation Plan Accompanying the document Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure /* SWD/2013/0493 final */









COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT
Implementation Plan
Accompanying the document 
Proposal for a Directive of the
European Parliament and of the Council 
on the protection of undisclosed
know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful
acquisition, use and disclosure
1.           Introduction
This Implementation Plan deals with the
risks and challenges which could result from the transposition and
implementation of the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and
of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business
information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and
disclosure.
This Implementation Plan is provided for
information purposes only. It does not legally bind the Commission on whether the
identified actions will be pursued or on the form in which they will be
pursued.
2.           Contact point
The responsible service within the
Commission for this proposal is:
DG Internal Market and Services
Intellectual Property Directorate
Unit D3 – Fight against counterfeiting and
piracy
Head of unit: Jean Bergevin
E-mail address: MARKT-IPRENFORCEMENT@ec.europa.eu
Specific website: 
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/iprenforcement/trade_secrets/index_en.htm

3.           Deliverables and
implementation challenges
3.1.        The objectives and content
of the proposal for a Directive
The objective of the initiative is to
foster the smooth functioning of the Internal Market for research and
innovative activities, by improving conditions for R&D, knowledge sharing
and innovation. Specifically, it aims at establishing a sufficient and
comparable level of civil redress throughout the Internal Market against the
unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of trade secrets by third parties,
while providing for safeguards to prevent abusive litigation. 
Thus, the proposal for a Directive lays
down rules on the unlawful acquisition, disclosure and use of trade secrets and
on the measures, procedures and remedies which provide for civil law redress
thereof:
–                        
The scope of protection of trade secrets is
essentially determined by defining a ‘trade secret’ (point (a) of Article 2)
and establishing the conduct (acquisition, use or disclosure) which should be
considered unlawful (Article 3).
–                        
The measures, procedures and remedies include interim
and precautionary measures (Articles 9 and 10) as well as measures on the
merits of the case (Articles 11 to 14).
–                        
A statute of limitations is provided for in
Article 7.
–                        
Rules on the preservation of trade secrets
during litigation are included in Article 8.
–                        
Sanctions for non-compliance with the measures,
procedures and remedies are provided for in Article 15 and for abusive litigation
in Article 6.
3.2.        Deliverables
National transposition measures are
required to integrate the Directive provisions into national law.
Once the directive transposed, the
fulfilment of the rules’ objectives will be dependent on the judicial
application of the rules.
This distinction between transposition and
subsequent application by judicial authorities is taken into account in the
identification of the challenges. 
3.3.        Challenges
(A) Ensuring the timely transposition
of the Directive into national law
The transposition of this Directive should
not pose excessive or insurmountable problems to Member States.
·                        
Timing challenges.
Member States will benefit from the standard period (24 months) to adopt the
national rules transposing the Directive into national law and no additional timing
constraints are imposed (e.g. the initiative does not impose a short
transposition deadline, nor does it require that national transposition
measures enter into force at the same time). As a result, no particular timing
challenges are expected. 
·                        
Technical challenges. The solutions proposed by the proposal for a Directive are already
known to Member States legal systems, either because of the content of the
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (as regards
trade secrets and intellectual property rights) or because of Directive
2004/48/EC (on intellectual property rights). Similar provisions to those of
the proposal are already contained in Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement
of intellectual property rights and the transposition of that directive did not
raise any particular technical difficulty in relation to the legislative
technique. Therefore, no specific technical difficulties are envisaged.
·                        
Compliance/institutional challenges. Beyond the drafting of the national legislation, no deliverables
are requested: i.e. no enactment of a new institutional framework is foreseen.
However, the following measures will be
taken to ensure a smooth transposition process and timely delivery.
Actions
on timely transposition:
–                        
Network of national correspondents. As provided
for in Article 16 of the Directive, Member States will be requested to provide
a correspondent for the purposes of the implementation of the Directive.
National correspondents should endeavour to inform the Commission services of
transposition problems/difficulties and alert them of possible delays in the
process. The list of correspondents will be updated where necessary.
–                        
Monitoring the transposition process. The
Commission services will monitor the transposition process and regularly
request information from the national correspondents on the stage of their
national procedures. Persuasive action will be taken by the Commission
services, at appropriate levels, in the event that a Member State would be identified as lagging behind schedule compared to the other Member States.
(B) Ensuring the harmonised
transposition of the Directive into national law
An important challenge is to ensure that
the Directive rules are understood by Member States in the same manner and that
therefore transposition into national law does not lead to diverging results.
In carrying out their respective
transposition processes, Member States may require assistance and technical
support from the Commission services and other Member States to address this
challenge. Also, national best practices will help other Member States.
Moreover, sharing of information among Member States would allow for the
identification of any problems and difficulties emerging in the transposition
process and find common solutions. In this context, the Commission will
implement the following measures during the transposition period.
Actions
on assistance and support to ensure harmonised transposition of the Directive
into national law:
–                        
Multilateral transposition workshops with Member
States, in order to support their legislative efforts (e.g. facilitate the
understanding of the Directive rules and their smooth integration into national
law).
–                        
Bilateral transposition meetings with interested
Member States, when needed.
–                        
Information sharing on national best practices
(within or outside transposition meetings).
–                        
Focus on problems/difficulties emerging during
the preparation of the national measures (within or outside transposition
meetings).
–                        
Up-dating the Commission services website on
trade secrets with relevant information on the new Directive.
In addition, it is important to ensure that
transposition of the Directive is correct. The Commission will remain
responsible for securing the proposed Directive (as for any EU rule) is
respected. Therefore, as a first step of the Commission services’ monitoring
process, it will be necessary to monitor whether national transposition is in
conformity with the directive rules. The following actions will be considered.
Monitoring
Actions:
–                        
Concordance tables: the Commission services will
provide a template for a "concordance table" which could be used by
Member States to illustrate the correlation between the provisions of the
Directive and the national transposition measures adopted. Even if the
submission of explanatory documents are not formally required by the Directive,
the Commission services will encourage Member States to use this template when
complying with their obligation to inform the Commission of the transposition
measures adopted.
–                        
Conformity assessment: the Commission services
will verify whether national transposition is complete and conforms to the
Directive rules.
(C) Ensuring the smooth application
of the Directive rules transposed into national law
Once national transposition measures are in
place, a second step is to ensure the smooth application of the rules so that
they provide comparable protection to trade secrets against their unlawful
acquisition, use or disclosure.
The role of judicial authorities will be
key in this regard. Judicial authorities will be in charge of effectively
applying the rules of the Directive whenever cases will be brought before them.
As in any judicial case, they will have to arbitrate between the interests of
the parties and to take the decisions on the interpretation of the Directive.
The Directive gives them some margin of manoeuvre to ensure that the
application of the rules is proportionate to the circumstances of the case (cf.
Articles 6, 8(3), 10(2), 12(1) and 14(3)). The judicial authorities have also a
key role in defending the objectives of the Directive as they will have powers
to sanction non-compliance with their decisions and to also sanction any
abusive litigation.
Given that the enforcement of the Directive
will be decentralized, the main challenges are therefore to ensure that all
judicial authorities carry out a proportionate enforcement of the rules and
that there are no material divergences among different judicial authorities.
For this, judicial authorities will need to get prepared. 
Other actors are also concerned. The
parties to judicial cases[1]
and their lawyers will have an interest in promoting the interpretation of the
Directive which will be the most favourable to them but also which will have
the highest changes of success, considering previous decisions. For this, they
will need to monitor what judicial authorities decide. 
However, there should not be consistency
problems with other areas of law. In particular, the proposed Directive does
not interfere with labour law and criminal law.
Therefore, it is appropriate to foresee
some actions to contribute to the smooth application of the Directive rules
transposed into national law. Those actions are mostly of an informative
nature.
Information
actions towards stakeholders:
–                        
Meetings with relevant stakeholder groups, in
order to explain the directive's rules, discuss any emerging difficulty and
issues arising from the practical application of the rules.
–                        
Promote mutual learning and exchange of best
practices among stakeholder groups.
–                        
Meetings with relevant judicial authorities, in
order to explain the directive's rules and discuss any emerging difficulty and
issues arising from the practical application of those rules.
–                        
Promote mutual learning and exchange of best
practices among judicial authorities.
–                        
Up-dating the Commission services website on
trade secrets with relevant information on the new Directive
These information actions could be carried
out within the activities of the European Observatory on Infringements of
Intellectual Property Rights.
In addition, it is important to ensure that
transposition of the Directive is correct. As a second step of the Commission
services’ monitoring responsibility as guardian of the Treaty, it will be necessary
to monitor whether the application of the national transposition measures is in
conformity with the directive's rules. The following actions will be
considered.
Monitoring
Actions
–                        
Regular implementation meetings with national
correspondents: the Commission services will hold regular meetings with Member
States, once the Directive transposed, to discuss issues arising from the
practical implementation of the rules. 
–                        
Preparatory work on the methodology and data
collection for the monitoring and evaluation of the application of the
Directive. A working group, possibly organised within the European Observatory
on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights and with the participation of Member States and stakeholders, will define, before the end of the transposition period,
the data needs for the future monitoring of the new rules and any subsequent
evaluation. This group would also set a strategy for the collection of such
data.
–                        
Report on litigation trends: to be carried out 3
years after the end of the transposition period by the European Observatory on
Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights.
–                        
Intermediate application report: to be carried
out by the Commission 4 years after the end of the transitional period.
–                        
Evaluation of the policy: to be carried out by
the Commission 8 years after the end of the transitional period.
4.           Support Actions
 Implementation challenge || Support Action || Timing 
 (A) Ensuring timely transposition of the Directive into national law || Network of national correspondents || As soon as proposal adopted 
 Monitoring the transposition process 
 (B) Ensuring harmonised transposition of the Directive into national law || Multilateral transposition workshops with Member States || Starting 2 months after the adoption of the proposal; during the transposition period 
 Bilateral transposition meetings with interested Member States || During the transposition period 
 Spread of national best practices (within or outside transposition meetings) 
 Focus on problems/difficulties emerging during the preparation of the national measures (within or outside transposition meetings) 
 Up-dating the Commission services website on trade secrets with relevant information on the new Directive || As soon as proposal adopted 
 Voluntary concordance tables || 6 months before the end of the transposition period 
 Conformity assessment || During the 12 months following the end of the transposition period 
 (C) Ensuring the smooth application of the Directive rules transposed into national law || Meetings with relevant stakeholder groups || As soon as proposal adopted 
 Promote mutual learning and exchange of best practices among stakeholder groups 
 Meetings with relevant judicial authorities 
 Promote mutual learning and exchange of best practices among judicial authorities. 
 Up-dating the Commission services website 
 Regular implementation meetings with national correspondents || After the end of the transposition period 
 Preparatory work on the methodology and data collection for the monitoring and evaluation of the application of the Directive. || Starting 6 months before the end of the transposition period 
 Report on litigation trends || 3 years after the end of the transposition period 
 Intermediate application report || 4 years after the end of the transposition period 
 Evaluation report || 8 years after the end of the transposition period 
Timeline*
* Assuming that the proposal for a
Directive is adopted by the Commission in autumn 2013 and that the adoption of
the text by the European Parliament and the Council could take place end 2014.
Dates would need to be adapted if these two assumptions do not hold true.
[1]               Parties will often be businesses. In some cases,
employees may also be concerned.