RT Journal Article
T1 Trade secrets in Spain: protection and connection with intellectual property rights.
A1 Fernández-Díaz, Carmen Rocío
K1 Secretos industriales
K1 Competencia económica desleal
K1 Derecho de la competencia
K1 Derecho mercantil - España
AB Intangibles constitute nowadays the most precious value for companies worldwide,enabling them to be settled as intellectual property rights or as trade secrets, on whichthis article focuses. On the one hand, this article takes a broad legal approach to their presencein the Spanish legal system, showing that they provide two types of protection: a civilprotection, through the Unfair Competition Law, and a criminal protection, through theCriminal Code, which includes criminal responsibility for legal persons. Each of thesetwo types of protection has particular features, but they are almost identical, as they punish,although with different legal consequences, the same actions against trade secrets. Onthe other hand, the purpose of this paper is also to explore the connection between tradesecrets and intellectual property rights, specifically patent rights. Both kinds of intangiblesshare many aspects and the international legal instruments confirm it, but their main differenceis the instrument of protection: while intellectual property rights receive protectionthrough their registration, trade secrets have to be safeguarded through specific measuresadopted by their holder in order to keep their confidentiality. From this difference othersare derived, but, despite their existence, they work as supplementary systems.
PB Elgar Online
YR 2016
FD 2016
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/38848
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/38848
LA eng
NO FERNANDEZ-DIAZ, C. R. “Trade secrets in Spain: protection and connection with intellectual property rights”, en la revista Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property (QMJIP), vol. 6, no. 4, 2016, pp. 454-477 (Online ISSN: 20459815 / Print ISSN: 20459807).
NO (C) [FERNANDEZ DIAZ, 2016]. The definitive, peer reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 454-477, 2016 (https://www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/qmjip/6-4/qmjip.2016.04.03.xml)
NO https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/id/publication/25836
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 20 ene 2026