Heavy penalty to be imposed on illegal outflow of specialized technology
E020920Y4 Oct. 2002（E38）
The Executive Yuan wrapped up the examination of draft Technology Protection Law, significantly changing the scope of technology to be protected. In addition to personal and technology-related intellectual property, it is decided that sensitive technologies that could affect our national security should be categorized into three levels of regulation. Penalty will be increased by a half for those who attempt to steal specialized technology or sensitive technology, or whose such act has benefited a foreign government, institution or overseas political entity (by so-called "overseas political entity", it means Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. The Mainland Affairs Council remains reserved about this term) to the maximum of ten-year imprisonment or a NT$15 million fine, or both in the case of judicial persons.
The 1st degree sensitive technology refers to items posing considerable impact on national security, items posing considerable influence on our technology advantage are graded in the 2nd degree, and those influential to both our national security and technology advantage are in the 3rd degree. The draft expressly states that the 1st and 2nd degree technologies shall not be exported or publicly disclosed without permission from competent authority, and that violators shall be individually sentenced to 1 to 7 years in prison or/and fined NT$10 million, or imprisoned for less than 3 years or/and fined NT$5 million. Exportation or disclosure of the 3rd degree technologies must first be reported to competent authority, and violators thereof will be fined an amount ranging between 50,000 to half a million New Taiwan Dollars. Exportation or disclosure of the 1st and 2nd degree technologies must be examined by the Technology Protection Review Board, which should render its decision within one month, or two months if necessary, or three months at most.
The punishment on infringing specialized technology will be imprisonment for less than 5 years, or a fine of NT$10 million, or both. Specialized technology is defined to include scientific method, manner, system, program, design, process, data, formula, or other information applicable to the manufacture, use or trading, and compliant with the following requirements: 1. Unknown to those not involved in similar information; 2. Containing actual or potential economic value because of its secrecy, and 3. Due measures have been adopted by the right owner concerned to protect its secrecy.
Source: Commercial Times 09/20/2002
China Times 09/20/2002
