NEWSLETTER-2020-metin

386 NEWSLETTER 2020 Protection of Trade Secrets* Att. Hazel Coşkun Baylan Trade secrets are confidential information, which are not known by the public, they provide economic benefits to its holder, and are protected to be kept as secret. Confidential information may be a formula, algorithm, method, or design, as well as sales strategies or customer data. Trade secret protection grants indefinite protection, and the content of the confidential information is not announced to the public but, rather, held as secret. Therefore, it provides an alternative to the patent protection that grants protection limited to 20 years with registration of the patent, which causes the content of the patent to be published. In this article, the scope of the trade secret protection under Turkish law, and solutions to avoid trade secret misappropriation, are reviewed. Definition of Trade Secret A trade secret is not defined under Turkish regulations. Although special regulations contain provisions on trade secret protection as in- dicated, below, these regulations are related to specific sectors. There- fore, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”) and Court of Cassation precedents are observed to better understand the concept. TRIPS, which is an international agreement on intellectual property rights executed by all member nations of the World Trade Organization, including the Republic of Turkey, sets forth a definition of trade secrets. Pursuant to Article 39(2) of TRIPS, trade secrets are defined as follows: • The information that is secret in the sense that it is not, as a body, nor in the precise configuration and assembly of its components, generally known among, or readily accessible * Article of December, 2020