民事訴訟에서의 秘密保護節次

Because of the intangible nature of a trade secret, the extent of the property right therein is defined by the extent to which the owner of the secret protects his interest from disclosure to others. Information that is public knowledge or that is generally known in an industry cannot be a trade secret. If an individual dis-closes his trade secret to others who are under no obligation to protect the con-fidentiality of the information, or otherwise publicly discloses the secret, his prop-erty right is extinguished. A fortiori, the Trade Secrets cannot be construed as any sort of assurance against internal agency use of submitted data during consideration of the applica-tion of a subsequent applicant for registration. Indeed, there is some evidence that the practice of using data submitted by one company during consideration of the application of a subsequent applicant was widespread and well known. The right to exclude others is generally “one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property.” With respect to a trade secret, the right to exclude others is central to the very definition of the property interest. Once the data that constitute a trade secret are disclosed to oth-ers, or others are allowed to use those data, the holder of the trade secret has lost his property interest in the data. In order for a reviewing court to uphold the trial courtʼs decision to exclude the public from proceedings or transcripts of proceedings, the record must dem-onstrate “an overriding interest based on findings that closure is essential to pre-serve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.” Unless such an overriding interest exists, there is a presumption that the proceedings will be open to the public. The overriding interest can involve the content of the in-formation at issue, the relationship of the parties, or the nature of the controversy.