According to Article 219 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, the crime of infringing on business secrets refers to the act of obtaining the business secrets of the obligee by theft, inducement, coercion or other improper means, or illegally disclosing, using or allowing others to use the business secrets they have mastered or obtained, thus causing great losses to the obligee of business secrets.
The object of the crime of infringing on trade secrets includes not only the national management system of trade secrets, but also the legal rights enjoyed by the obligee of trade secrets. The subject of crime is a general subject, including both natural persons and units. Whoever violates the provisions of Article 10 of this Law and infringes on business secrets shall be ordered by the supervision and inspection department to stop the illegal act, and may be fined not less than 10,000 yuan but not more than 200,000 yuan according to the circumstances.
How to measure the penalty for infringing trade secrets?
Article 7 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Laws in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights commits one of the acts stipulated in Article 219 of the Criminal Law, which causes losses of more than 500,000 yuan to the obligee of trade secrets, and it belongs to "causing great losses to the obligee of trade secrets". It shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention for the crime of infringing trade secrets and shall also or only be fined.
If the amount of losses caused to the obligee of trade secrets is more than 2.5 million yuan, it belongs to "causing particularly serious consequences" as stipulated in Article 219 of the Criminal Law, and it shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years for the crime of infringing trade secrets and fined.