問9
頻出度★★★
不正競争防止法の営業秘密に該当するものはどれか。
平成21年度 春期 ITパスポート試験 問9
ストラテジ系法務 › 知的財産権
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 9
Incorrectア
Wrong because it lacks non-public status. The original information is technical information published on the Internet, so it is already publicly known. Printing it out, marking it “confidential (internal only),” and filing it may formally satisfy secrecy management, but information that has become public never returns to being non-public. All three requirements must be satisfied, so the moment non-public status is missing, it does not qualify as a trade secret.
Incorrectイ
Wrong because it lacks usefulness. Since it is kept under the control of a limited number of employees in a locked archive, secrecy management and non-public status are satisfied, but the content is a record of the company's own improper transactions. Information about antisocial conduct that violates public order and morals is not the technical or business information “useful for business activities” that the law protects, so usefulness is not recognized. Such information should rather be disclosed through channels like whistleblowing; it is not something to be protected as a trade secret.
Incorrectウ
Wrong because it lacks secrecy management. As the choice itself says, “regardless of whether they are managed as confidential to outsiders,” the individual documents are not necessarily managed as secrets. If the work rules merely state a general duty of confidentiality, employees cannot objectively recognize which information is secret, so the secrecy management requirement cannot be said to be satisfied. Secrecy management is judged by concrete measures taken for each piece of information, such as confidentiality markings and access restrictions.
- エ
正解 Under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act, a trade secret (Article 2, Paragraph 6) is information that satisfies all three of the following requirements: (1) secrecy management — it is managed as a secret; (2) usefulness — it is technical or business information useful for business activities, such as production methods or sales methods; (3) non-public status — it is not publicly known. In エ, a system design document was disclosed to a subcontractor, marked “confidential (internal only),” after a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) had been concluded. Because objective management measures — concluding an NDA and marking the document as confidential — were taken, the secrecy management requirement is met; a system design document is technical information useful for business activities, so the usefulness requirement is met; and disclosure was limited to a subcontractor who bears a contractual duty of confidentiality, so the information is not in a state where an unspecified number of people could come to know it, and non-public status is not lost either. All three requirements are satisfied, so エ qualifies as a trade secret.
ここがポイント
- The three requirements for a trade secret = secrecy management, usefulness, and non-public status (Unfair Competition Prevention Act, Article 2, Paragraph 6). Information becomes a trade secret only when it satisfies all three; if even one is missing, it does not qualify. The incorrect choices each lack exactly one of them: non-public status (ア), usefulness (イ), and secrecy management (ウ).
- Secrecy management is judged by whether objective management measures have been taken, such as concluding a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), applying markings like “confidential (internal only)” or “confidential to outsiders,” storing documents under lock, and restricting access. Also remember that limited disclosure to a party bound by a duty of confidentiality (such as a subcontractor) does not destroy non-public status.
用語