'Bordering Secrecy: An Empirical Study on Cross-Border Trade Secret Misappropriation in the Semiconductor Sector' by Tzu-I Lee in (2024) 39(2) Connecticut Journal of International Law 166-237 comments
Nation-states take steps to prevent the theft of domestic entities’ trade secrets and other intellectual property (“IP”). The United States has issued complaints, passed laws, and implemented initiatives and sanctions targeting China’s unfair and illegal economic practices, which include trade-secret theft. Although China has responded by amending its civil, criminal, and administrative trade-secret regime, foreign companies still routinely struggle with thefts connected to China. The semiconductor industry– essential to daily-life, commercial, and military needs–is one of the most brutal battlegrounds of today’s IP and tech wars. A leader in the industry is the Taiwanese semiconductor sector, which, along with the Taiwanese government and like-minded democracies, must confront a particularly complex set of economic, security, and geopolitical challenges from China. Currently, poor grasp of cross-border trade secret thefts has greatly weakened sincere efforts to deal with the grave threat posed by China. In this Article, I cross-analyze empirical quantitative and qualitative data regarding U.S. and Taiwanese semiconductor trade-secret litigation to better understand the dynamics of Chinese trade-secret theft. I propose that individuals, companies, governments, and international organizations should respond to trade-secret threats by restoring trust within a geopolitical economic framework, rather than by pursuing purely legalistic IP approaches.
