산업스파이범죄 관련 법률의 개선방안에 대한 연구

A Study on the Reform Plan of the Law about the Industrial Espionage Crime

  Nowadays, the illegal exportation of Korean enterprises" industrial technologies to foreign countries has become an enormous social issue in virtue of the interests of Korea and enterprises. This kind of illegal exportation does not happen abruptly. However, the amount of monetary damage caused by this is too enormous to be ignored. On the other hand, this also shows that Korea which had to import almost all technologies in past has reached the stage where Korea should worry about this exportation of technologies. Recently, the argument about how to protect the industrial technologies of enterprises has become contentious social issue. Though various methods and strategies to deal with this situation has been suggested and discussed, it can be said that legal methods to define and protect the industrial technologies have not fully examined yet. In fact, recently the Prevention and Protection Act on the Leak of Industrial Technologies(the PPALIT) has been enacted so that some legal flaws in the illegal exportation of industrial technologies have been more or less corrected. However, there is a weakness that it cannot be applied to general trade secrets in that the scope of industrial technologies that are defined by the same act is limited. Furthermore, it is contentious that this is so excessively enacted that it can restrict the employees(workers)’ freedom to choose their jobs as well as that the assessed cost of damage caused by industrial espionage is doubtable.