Current Trends in the Development of Trade Secret Legislation: Legislative and Practical Aspects

The article is devoted to the study of the legal regulation and functioning of the trade secret institution in the context of the existing mechanisms for its protection, as well as to forecasting the further development of this institution in light of the experience of the European Union Member States. The relevance of the research is determined by the emergence of numerous legislative initiatives aimed at aligning Ukrainian trade secret legislation with European Union law, driven by both the requirements of the European integration process and the internal challenges associated with the functioning of the institution under study. The purpose of the research is to assess the current issues related to trade secret protection in Ukraine and the possibilities for addressing these issues through the adaptation of Ukrainian legislation to EU law, as well as to identify potential challenges that may arise as a result of such adaptation. The research is based on the dialectical method, which enables the subject matter to be examined in its development and interrelation with other legal phenomena. The formal legal and comparative legal methods were widely employed in the study. The article demonstrates that the current definition of a trade secret in Ukraine has been criticized because Ukrainian legislation requires information to be expressly designated as a trade secret by its owner. The main challenge associated with the practical mechanisms for trade secret protection lies in the complexity of enforcing such protection, which is largely attributable to the difficulties of proving the unlawful disclosure of trade secrets. As a consequence, the existing domestic protection mechanisms remain unpopular among rights holders and are rarely used in practice. In examining the future development of this legal institution, the study concludes that the next and most likely step will be the harmonization of European legislation governing trade secret protection. Such a development will lead to a departure from the current formalized approach to defining trade secrets and will strengthen the role of assessing the value of the protected information, as well as the adequacy and reasonableness of the measures taken to protect it in each particular case.