Key R&D Staff Resign, Taking "Half the Solution" with Them: How Can Companies Make Technical-Secret Rights Enforcement "Winnable and Enforceable"?

What key R&D staff take away when they leave is often not "complete drawings / complete code / complete formula," but key parameters, structural coupling relationships, process windows, test data, BOM component-selection logic, digital model drawings, algorithm details and other "parts of the technical solution." Individually, these fragments look unremarkable — but once the new employer pieces them together, they can significantly shorten the R&D cycle, bypass trial-and-error costs, and even go straight into mass production. This is exactly the high-frequency scenario in technical-secret disputes.In the second-instance (appeal) proceedings of the Geely v. WM Motor technical-secret infringement case , the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court  expressly held that the defendants had not only obtained technical secrets by improper means, but had also "illegally disclosed part of the technical secrets by filing patent applications" and used the technical secrets to manufacture and sell products — conduct constituting infringement. The court ultimately awarded damages of approximately RMB 640,000,000, and applied double punitive damages for part of the period. The signal sent by such second-instance rulings is unmistakable: technical secrets can be protected, can attract high damages awards, and can drive the cost of infringement to the point where it is "not worth the gain."What follows is an actionable rights-enforcement roadmap, framed from the angle of what companies can actually "follow and do."

 1. Start by Turning "Half the Solution" into a "Schedule of Secret Points" a Court Can Actually Adjudicate

Many companies lose technical-secret cases not because they genuinely have no secrets, but because, when filing suit, they describe the secret in a single sentence: "Our chassis technology / process technology / algorithm technology / technical solution was taken away." On that basis, the court cannot conduct a comparison, cannot order preservation , and cannot find that the information is "not known to the public" .

The right approach: break "part of the technical solution" down into "secret points" that can be located and compared. A three-layer structure is recommended:

1. Carrier layer (where the evidence is) — drawing numbers / digital model file names, code repository paths, simulation models, test reports, parameter tables, process cards, supplier selection documents, test data sets, etc.
2. Secret-point layer (what exactly you are protecting) — not simply "one technical solution, one set of experimental data," but for example the combination relationship "structure A + tolerance B + assembly sequence C," "the Z parameter window of material X within temperature range Y," "the algorithm's specific feature engineering + threshold settings + training-data cleansing rules," or "the key-component selection logic + substitution decision tree," etc.
3. Value layer (what competitive advantage it delivers) — how much R&D time it saves the company, how much trial-production cost it reduces, how much profit it generates, along with the performance improvement, and the impact on customer qualification / certification, etc.

Key point: a technical secret is often embodied in a combination relationship and an implementation path, rather than in a single "point." As long as you can articulate "half the solution" clearly enough to permit comparison, you bring it within the scope of what the court can adjudicate.

2. The "Golden 72 Hours" of Action Once Departure Risk Emerges: Preserve the Evidence First, Discuss Liability Later

What technical-secret disputes fear most is this: the evidence sits with the other side (servers, R&D documents, account books, prototypes) and you cannot get hold of it. In that situation, the following steps are needed.

 0–24 hours: Stop the losses and collect evidence in parallel (but get the order right)

1. Freeze accounts and revoke access (leaving a documented trail) — email, cloud drives, VPN, code repositories, document systems.
2. Forensic imaging of electronic data — the computers, portable hard drives and cloud-drive sync directories of the personnel involved. A third party is recommended for the forensics, with a record kept of the forensic process.
3. Pull a list of logs — code repositories, bulk downloads from cloud drives, external link sharing, large attachments sent out by email, and access-control / overtime / printing records (to corroborate the time window during which copying occurred).

24–72 hours: External actions to "prepare for litigation"

1. Lawyer's letter (律师函) / notification letter (告知函) (to the employee and the new employer) — stating: the source of the confidentiality obligation (contract, internal rules, training, markings); the scope of the secret points (which should not be overbroad, but must be locatable); demands to cease use and disclosure, to return and delete, to give a written undertaking and to accept verification; and a statement that you will apply for evidence preservation and conduct preservation.
2. Assess immediately: is conduct preservation (an injunction) necessary? — If the other side has already started production, is delivering to customers, is exhibiting publicly, or is preparing to file patent applications, an injunction is enormously valuable. The second-instance ruling in Geely v. WM Motor specifically emphasized the form of infringement of "illegally disclosing part of the technical secrets by filing patent applications."

3. Choosing Among Three Routes: Civil Litigation as the Main Battlefield + Preservation as the Accelerator + Criminal Deterrence Where Necessary

3.1 Civil litigation: "infringement of trade secrets / technical secrets" under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law is the primary route

The relief typically sought includes:

• cessation of disclosure, use, or permitting others to use;
• destruction or deletion of the carriers, or their surrender;
• compensation for losses (or the infringer's profits) + reasonable expenses (attorney's fees, expert appraisal fees, evidence-collection costs, etc.).

 3.2 Evidence preservation: the "decisive move" in technical-secret cases

Much of the key evidence sits with the opposing company: R&D servers, project documents, cost accounts, sales data, prototypes. Without evidence preservation, you will often be left to rely on presumption and expert appraisal alone — costly and unreliable.

At the legal level, the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Cases of Infringement of Trade Secrets (2020) provide systematic support on the types of infringing conduct, the rules of evidence and other matters, and form the core legal authority for technical-secret rights enforcement.

3.3 The criminal route: not mandatory in every case, but once the threshold is met, its deterrent effect is extremely strong

Where the threshold for criminal case filing and prosecution is met, materials may be prepared in parallel; in practice, a combination of "civil preservation first + parallel criminal assessment" is common, used to force the infringement to a halt, bring about a rapid settlement and pry evidence loose.

4. The "Three Elements" That Must All Be Established in One Go at the Time of Filing: Secrecy, Value and Confidentiality Measures

 4.1 Secrecy: the core is "capable of comparison + not known to the public"

• Set out the secret points as "technical features + combination relationships + implementation paths";
• provide a "carve-out statement" for the publicly known parts (which parts are public, and which combination relationships are not public);
• where necessary, carry out a public-availability search + comparative analysis (industry standards, papers, patents, publicly available product materials).

 4.2 Value: quantify it in terms of "cost savings / shorter cycles / better performance"

• Project initiation documents, R&D investment, trial-production costs, test-iteration records;
• customer certification cycles, mass-production yield rates, improvements in key metrics;
• financial modeling: if a competitor uses the secrets, how much trial-and-error and investment can be saved.

4.3 Confidentiality measures: do not just say "we have rules" — supply an "evidence chain showing implementation"

What the court examines is not the text of the rules, but whether the rules are actually implemented. It is advisable to prepare four categories of evidence:

• Rules and notification: confidentiality policy, tiered classification, rules on confidential markings, training sign-in records;
• Access control and segregation: access controls, approval workflows, outbound-transfer controls, code repository permissions;
• Contracts and obligations: confidentiality clauses in employment contracts, non-disclosure agreements, non-compete arrangements (if any);
• Departure handover: departure checklist (return / deletion / account deactivation), exit interview minutes, reconfirming the continued confidentiality obligation.

5. How to Make Damages "Hurt Enough": Prioritize the "Infringer's Profits + Punitive Damages" Approach

In technical-secret cases, "our own losses" are often hard to calculate, whereas "the infringer's profits" are more workable — especially where there are clear product sales and project revenue.

In the Geely v. WM Motor appeal, the SPC took the profits from the relevant vehicle models as a key basis, applied double punitive damages for a specific period, and ultimately produced a large damages award of approximately RMB 640,000,000. The direct implications for companies are:

1. Lock down the evidentiary sources for sales and profit data as quickly as possible (evidence preservation / an order to produce account books);
2. Collect evidence of "subjective malice" and "serious circumstances" — for example, bulk poaching of personnel and rapidly producing a highly similar solution within a short period; deliberately avoiding leaving a documented trail, abnormal downloads / outbound transfers; disclosing secret content externally by means of patent filings;
3. Substantiate the reasonable expenses (evidence collection, expert appraisal, attorney's fees) and seek full or high-percentage support.

In sum, "taking half the solution away" does not mean that rights cannot be enforced. As long as you can break the secret points down into objects capable of comparison, secure the evidence within the shortest possible time, and use preservation to lock down the other side's key materials, you can turn the case from an "emotional grievance" into an "evidence-driven" one — achieving, on the main battlefield of civil litigation, an enforceable cessation of infringement and a substantial damages award.