ONSCREEN TITLE: Queensland University of Technology,
Three Minute Thesis Grand Final,
Tuesday 6 September 2:00pm
ONSCREEN TITLE: Mr Darshana Sumanadasa, Faculty
of Law
ONSCREEN TITLE: Supervisory Team: Prof Kamal
Puri (Principal), Prof Desmond Butler (Associate)
ONSCREEN TITLE: 2nd Year PhD Student
ONSCREEN TITLE: Protection of Trade Secrets
in an Employment Setting
Darshana Sumanadasa, PhD student: If you say
my name, I’ll no longer exist!
Any guesses?
I’m a trade secret: one of the most difficult
things to protect in this curious world.
So, if you have valuable commercial or technical
information which is recognised as a trade secret
and hundreds of your employees get to know
that in the course of their employment, what
is the guarantee that your employees will
not use your trade secret for their own benefit
or even worse, for the benefit of your competitors?
My research attempts to solve this problem
by providing solutions for the Australian
legal landscape which is currently neither
clear nor satisfactory.
In this multi-billion dollar knowledge-based
economy, trade secrets are often treated as
crown jewels as it brings a competitive advantage
to a company.
It could be the formula of Coca-Cola, the
secret recipe of KFC, google algorithm or
even a customer list of a company.
As pointed out by The Australian Bureau of
Statistics, secrecy is the most common intellectual
property protection method among Australian
businesses.
Moreover, employees are recognised as the biggest threat to the protection of trade
secrets, as they know how and where such trade
secrets are stored and other details of it.
Usually, employers believe that a comprehensive
written contract which includes non-disclosure
and non-competition clauses would successfully
prevent an employee from divulging trade secrets
and from joining a rival company.
However, such contracts are not always effective
as nothing can be done once the cat is out
of the bag.
Despite the commercial significance, the law
relating to this issue is highly fragmented
domestically and internationally.
For instance, Australia follows case law precedent
derived in 17th century in regulating the
issue whereas other continents such as the
USA and Europe follow legislation.
This legal fragmentation prejudicially affects trade, cross-border-collaborative innovation
and technology transfer, making Australia
less competitive in global markets.
Moreover, it is doubtful how the courts would
strike a balance between an employers’ right
to protect trade secrets and an employees’
right to professional mobility and other rights.
Therefore, based on a comparative research,
comparative analysis, my research proposes
a framework for Australia to more consistently
approach the regulation of trade secrets in
an employment setting.
In doing so, I draw on international law and
domestic laws.
I analyse the good and bad practices, utilised
by those jurisdictions and make suggestions
to help Australia move forward in this globalised
knowledge economy.
Thank you.
